The Griffin at 530 Harrison Avenue in SOWA

Unscene – A scene that was seen, but not. The three bodies of work in this show, Unchartered Constellations, The Intimacy of Distance, and Terra Novus (New Land), all are depicting things that are there and not there at the same time.

Unscene will be on display in the Griffin’s satellite gallery, The Griffin@SoWa at 530 Harrison Ave from  July 11 through September 12, 2017. A reception will take place on August 4, 2017 from 6-8 PM.

Jane Yudelman, in Unchartered Constellations, has made space-scapes out of problematic spectral highlights that presented while photographing snow. What we get, instead, are galaxies where our imagination can go and contemplate what is and what could be.

Gregory Albertson’s series, The Intimacy of Distance, is made of ethereal landscapes taking us somewhere between earth and the moon, between here and there. In his images, made from stacked-focused shots of bark, we can go to places unknown, places we might begin to recognize from our dreams, and if we use all our senses, we might be aware of stardust echoing back our journey from places where we might have come.

Amy Rindskopf’s series, Terra Novus (New Land), tethers us right here to Mother Earth. Her images draw us in to the plants that nurture us, the fruits that feeds us. Her landscapes undulate from the kitchen table and take us to places where we can contemplate the earth and the sun, and give thanks for the harvests that keep us strong.

Conrad Gees’ “Bosque “Magico” de la Habana,” takes place in the forest of Havana, Cuba. For 6 days in a multi-year project, Gees roamed the streets hoping to document the people and changes in the city since the announcement of a renewed relationship between the United States and Cuba. Magic began in his photographs when Gees found the entrance to the forest park.

Gees’ “Bosque “Magico” de la Habana,” will be on display in the Griffin’s satellite gallery, The Griffin@SoWa at 530 Harrison Ave from May 6 through July 7, 2017. A reception will take place on June 2, 2017 from 6-8 PM.

“The true beauty of the park,” says Gees,” lays in its deepest recesses where over the years vines and new growth have combined with old growth, forming strange enchanted creatures and structures that have a life of their own. The forest appeared to me to be a metaphor for Cuba today, a beautiful and surreal mixing of old and new.”

Gees’ work has been exhibited in solo shows at The New England School of Photography, The Center for the Arts Natick, and Baldwin Hill Art and Framing Gallery, as well as group shows at The Griffin Museum of Photography, the Providence Center for Photographic Arts, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Smith College.  His work has also been published in University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Fine Arts Magazine.  Most recently he completed the Photography Atelier Program at the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Conrad Gees currently resides in Natick, MA.

Sarah Hadley

Lost Venice

Feb 28, 2017- May 2, 2017

Reception April 7, 2017 6-8 PM

 

Sarah Hadley’s project, Lost Venice, articulates nostalgic memories and her long history with the city. For over 20 years, Hadley has photographed the architecture and landscapes of Venice, gathering photographs that not only show its overwhelming beauty, but also how she sees the life in Venice rapidly evolving as the foundations gradually crumble.

Hadley’s series, Lost Venice, will be on display in the Griffin’s satellite gallery, The Griffin@SoWa at 530 Harrison Ave from February 28 through May 2, 2017. A reception will take place on April 7th, 2017 from 6-8 PM.

Hadley explains, “I chose Venice because of my long history with the city- one that began when I was four years old in Boston, Massachusetts, and we moved to a house modeled on a Venetian Palace – the Gardner Museum. We lived in the Director’s apartment above it for most of my childhood and we traveled to Venice often, as it was a place my family loved. Years later, I was photographing there on a foggy November night and I saw a man that looked just like my father walking over a bridge and I felt as if I’d seen a ghost. The sadness in this work is about the loss of my father, who died suddenly when I was 25, and it is also my feelings about the loss of my childhood home, that Venetian Palace, and about the fragility and impermanence of things.”

Sarah Hadley tells Jim McKinniss of The Photo Exchange, “My current work revolves around the feeling of longing. I love to travel but want to be everywhere at once, even at home. I yearn for the past, yet love daydreaming about the future. I work in sepia and often blur the edges, both as a nod to antique photographs and as a way to draw more depth and feeling out of a black and white image. I want the places to seem dream-like and otherworldly, as if the place is both familiar and unknown.”

As a child, Hadley had an interesting introduction to art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where her father was director. She spent 18 years surrounded by art in a Venetian palazzo. She studied both art history at Georgetown University and photography at the Corcoran College of Art. She then spent time living and working in Venice, Italy at the Guggenheim Museum and the Venice Biennale. Subsequently, she worked at the National Gallery of Art, the Library of Congress and as a photojournalist for a small town newspaper in Virginia. She then chose to move to Chicago, where she founded the Filter Photo Festival in 2009. Sarah Hadley has participated in many exhibitions, including: Fotofever (Paris), the Lishui Photo Festival (China), the Worldwide Photography Biennial (Buenos Aires) and the Ballarat Festival (Australia) and in galleries and museums around the US. She has been featured in many publications and online blogs including “B+W Magazine” (UK), “ArtTribune,” “Shots Magazine”, Lenscratch.com, and “F-Stop Magazine”. Hadley currently resides in Los Angeles.

The Griffin thanks GTI Properties and SoWa Boston for their continued support of the Griffin Museum in bringing this exhibit to the public.

Michael Hintlian spent extensive days working beside the construction workers of the Central Artery/ Tunnel Project. Unofficial and without permission, he continued to return and photograph until the construction was over. Thus his project came to an end. His dedication and love for handmade work served as the inspiration for his own work.

Hintlian’s series, The Big Dig, will be on display in the Griffin’s satellite gallery, The Griffn@ SoWa at 530 Harrison from October 4th through December 4th, 2016.

“From the get-go, the idea of this work had little to do with the landmark phases of the construction though some of the ribbon-cutting ceremonies provided interesting picture opportunities,” said Hintlian. He goes on to say, “Instead, it was about how these amazing assets were created, which was mostly by hand. This act of becoming, where men and women created and built with their hands, was how I saw the Big Dig.”

Michael Hintlian’s work has appeared in major U.S. dailies and international periodicals, and has been widely exhibited and collected. His photo-documentary Digging: The Workers of Boston’s Big Dig was published in 2004. Hintlian has served on the faculties of The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The New School for Social Research, and Parsons School of Design, New York. Currently he heads the Documentary Photography department at New England School of Photography in Boston.

In much of my work I’m dealing with subjects that are in a transitory state. The Evanescence series features images from composted organic materials. In this body of work I’m exploring the mechanics of transition through time, neglect and natural decomposition. I hope to establish images that can be beautiful and chaotic. Subjects that in their own specific way function as a part of a transient process. This ongoing series has been developed over the past two years and included are some of the newest selections.

Our thanks to GTI Properties and SoWa Boston for their continued support of the Griffin Museum in bringing this exhibit to the public.

Reception with the artist: Friday, February 5, 2016 from 6-7:30 pm

Curated by Paula Tognarelli, executive director and curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA for Duncan Miller Gallery in Santa Monica, California via YourDailyPhotograph.com

Curators’ Statement

Since ancient times Man has been mesmerized by the sky. It has inspired us. We’ve written poems and sung about it,and danced by it. Before understanding, we prayed to it and feared it. Life and tragedy spring from it. We measure our goals against it (sky high) and solve problems because of it (blue skying). The possibilities in life are endless because of it (the sky’s the limit). We have written in it, and rocketed through it, and fallen from it. And alas we have tainted it. The sky can be seen from above and below and it is immense beyond our understanding. We can tell time and find our way by it. It has been described as changing, mocking, moody, vanilla and tangerine. The sky though is not what it seems to be.

The artists of SKY responded with a wide artistic interpretation of the topic giving way to abstract, representational or conceptual interpretations of “Sky” in all forms of light based media.

Thank you to the artists of SKY. The Griffin Museum of Photography is very proud to be able to share excerpts from the original SKY exhibition. What ever happens in life for you, do not ever give up looking upwards.

My thanks go to Daniel Miller of the Duncan Miller Gallery in Santa Monica, California whose vision allowed my dream exhibition to be realized.

The photographers in this show include: Lisa Allen, Janine Autolitano, Karl Baden, Sheri Lynn Behr, Charlie Bidwell, Meg Birnbaum, Amanda Boe, Jeff Boxer, Manuel Cosentino, Lorraine Devon Wilke, Barbara Dorin Hayden, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Lika Fedorenko, Joan Fitzsimmons, Brittonie Fletcher, Jennifer Georgescu, Najib Joe Hakim, Leslie Hall Brown, Alice Hargrave, Carol Isaak, Alyssa Minahan, Susan Keiser, John E. Kelly, Frank Kosempa, Molly Lamb, Susan Lapides, Scott Lerman, Tom Lowe, Jim McKinniss, Yvette Meltzer, Blue Mitchell, Eleanor Owen Kerr, Diane Pirie Cockerill, Anastasia Samoylova, Lynn Saville, Jennifer Schlesinger, Garret Suhrie, Larry Torno, Peter Trieber, Susan Wilson, and Dianne Yudelson

Our thanks to GTI Properties and SoWa Boston for their continued support of the Griffin Museum in bringing this exhibit to the public.

In the Griffin@ SoWa Gallery the Griffin Museum highlights all of its exhibitions in all of its galleries.

A Collaboration between photographer Asia Kepka and writer Lynn Dowling

On a hot July day, we dressed ourselves up with masks borrowed from a friend and started shooting self-portraits. We were fascinated by these characters and immediately named them Horace and Agnes.

Once we gave them identity, their story began to unfold. They met through random circumstance and their love for each other is literally blind. They exemplify a fairy tale of what would be like to fall in love with the right person…just because.

Horace and Agnes, along with their friends, are inspired by people and stories from our past and present. Sometimes by family members and sometimes by strangers we have encountered. The photographs are memories brought to life once again- recreated with as much detail possible to make the viewer become immersed in this magical and unique world.

The process of creating each photograph can vary–sometimes it is a spontaneous accident and other times it is a painstakingly long process of wardrobe selection, set building and prop collection.

The identity of each person behind the mask is kept secret. It is an amazing and eclectic group of people throughout the country. It’s been fascinating to watch people being transformed almost immediately once they put on the mask and clothing. The characters they portray can be the complete opposite of who they are in real life. Sometimes a simple mask can give one the opportunity to embrace and challenge their usual selves.

Asia Kepka and Lynn Dowling