The Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging

Los Angeles-based photographer and filmmaker Chris Anthony’s photographs are fashioned from his childhood fiction-filled reading habits. He was drawn to characters from mythology, to mystery and horror stories and to poems by Edgar Allen Poe. His favorite protagonists include deities, devils and demi –gods, hobos, princes, nymphs and fishermen and the seahorse or mythical hippocampi. The title of his exhibition comes from a line in one of Poe’s poems called Dream-Land. “Seas Without a Shore reflects the woes of all those sea-faring nomads, survivors and otherwise peculiar characters marching about and standing for portraits in the ocean surf [in my photographs],” says Chris Anthony.

A series of Anthony’s photographs called “Seas Without a Shore,” is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, on June 16, 2015 through September 11, 2015. An opening reception will take place July 23, 2015 from 6-8 p.m.

“I was smitten with Edgar Allen Poe’s imagery,” says Anthony. “I also remember a vintage movie poster that hung on my Aunt Maggie’s living room in Stockholm from the 1934 film, The Black Cat,” he says. “The disembodied heads of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi that zoomed across a blackened vortex of a cat’s silhouette made a huge impact on me. Their facial expressions were terrifying. The poster didn’t scare me though. It thrilled me.”

Chris Anthony creates the props and costumes for the scenes in his photographs. The pieces are a combination of archival pigment prints and wet plate collodion assemblages, a process developed in the mid-19th century. He uses modern day equipment as well as antiquarian processes. The ocean backdrop is Venice Beach in California.

Born in Sweden, Anthony currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. His work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, Stockholm, Brooklyn, Hong Kong, Washington D.C., London, Bath, San Francisco and is included in many private and public collections around the world. Publications that have featured Anthony and his work include the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Photo District News, Eyemazing, Art News, American Photo, Blink, Paper, Photo+, GUP, Fraction Magazine, Nylon, Black Book, Juxtapoz, Zoom, Angeleno, The Huffington Post, Corrierre della Serra and LA Weekly. Clients include Chiat/Day, Sony Playstation, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Republic Records, Warner Music, Los Angeles Magazine, Hollywood Records, Reprise, Stuttgart City Ballet, Myspace Records, Dell and USC.
The exhibit is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Jay Gould’s work integrates scientific topics into installation and constructed photographic projects. With “Escape Velocity” Gould has been photographing the tight-knit community of model rocketry enthusiasts. “Drive a good hour outside of nearly every American metropolitan area on a sunny Saturday morning and you may see small chutes of smoke lingering in the sky,” says Jay Gould. “If you are like me, you have even curiously traced these trails from time to time.”

A series of Gould’s photographs called “Escape Velocity,” is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, on March 26, 2015 through June 5, 2015. A closing reception will take place June 4, 2015 from 6-8 p.m.

“Many of these explorers are taking their first steps into hands-on science,” says Gould. “These less experienced members are guided by an entire community, in which many members have careers in aerospace.”

“Who hasn’t dreamed of conquering new frontiers,” says Paula Tognarelli executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “It’s the desire to fly and the drive to know what lies beyond that spurs on these rocket explorers. Without curiosity many of us would still be huddled in a European township wondering of what cheese the moon was made.”

Jay Gould is an artist and a member of the faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Gould received his BFA in photography from the University of Wisconsin and his MFA from the Savanna College of Art and Design. His work has won numerous national awards, such as the Berenice Abbott Prize for an emerging photographer, the Jeannie Pierce Award, and First Place at the Newspace Center for Photography’s International Juried Exhibition. _Gould’s work is widely exhibited around the country making solo and group show appearances at the Fridman Gallery in NYC, the University of Notre Dame, The Julia Dean Gallery in Los Angeles, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, he Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Gould is also a longtime member of the faculty at the Maine Media Workshops and is currently serving as the Chair of the Society for Photographic Education’s Mid Atlantic Region.

The exhibit is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The urban landscape has changed much since the era when “Post No Bills” was the rule of the land. Graffiti in the city is now commonplace and has taken hold globally. Stu Rosner has found an unexpected treasure in street art. Where some see the destruction of private property, Rosner sees a Pollock or a Chagall.

A series of Rosner’s photographs of graffiti called “Pentimento,” is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, on October 14 through January 8, 2014. A reception and informal talk with the artist will take place November 13, 2014 from 6-8 p.m.

Growing up in Greenwich Village, New York near his father’s store, Rosner learned that people should not put posters or advertisements on city walls. “For the most part people complied and buildings remained unadorned,” says Rosner. “In the decade that spanned the mid ‘60s-70’s, we began to see enormous social/political/cultural change due in part to the Vietnam War and opposition to same, the Civil Rights movement, political assassinations, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, the emergence of punk and the nascent stirrings of rap,” he says. “In New York, a thousand murals and tags bloomed; it was a phenomenon that spread internationally and quickly. Suddenly it was on walls, on entire lengths of subway cars, in doorways, on panel trucks; graffiti was ubiquitous. Public opinion was split between outrage and admiration.”

Stu Rosner splits his time between fine art and commercial photography. He resides in Cambridge, MA with his new rescue dog.

Since 1976 John Wyatt has been photographing people in their own environments who are heavily tattooed. In his own words Wyatt says, “I selected people who were dedicated to tattoo art and compiling a collection of art on their body as an art collector accumulates art for their homes. My subjects were not getting tattooed because tattooing had suddenly become popular, or fashionable. For them, it was a way of life; a culture of tattooing.” Along with each black and white photograph, Wyatt has recorded audio of his subjects that has been transcribed into exhibition text.

A series of his images, “Under My Skin,” is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, on July 24 through October 3, 2014. A reception and informal talk and book signing with the artist will take place October 2, 2014 from 6-8 p.m.

In February 2003 Schiffer Publishing LTD published Wyatt’s completed work in a book, which is titled “Under My Skin.”

John Wyatt was born in Brooklyn and now resides in New Jersey. John studied sociology and worked as a social worker for 33 years and as an administrator in the public sector. He has always had an interest in people and behavior. He has blended his interests in photography and culture in his project “Under My Skin.” Photographs from this project have been published in magazines and books and exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States. His work is in the collection of the Jersey City Museum.
The exhibit is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Ri Anderson photographs her two young daughters at home in her studio in Mexico as well as at play in their surroundings. In her words her work “is influenced by magical realism, Rousseau’s jungle paintings and the photography of Graciela Iturbide.” She also photographs her children as fictional characters from literature, the bible, art history or from her daughters’ imaginations.

A series of her images, Mexican Parlour Games/Secret Sibling World, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, June 1 through July 18, 2014. A reception and informal talk with the artist is July 17, 2014 from 6-8 p.m.

“I use an assortment of costumes for my daughters that are left over from school plays, artisan market acquisitions, and circus accessories that come from my part-time career as an aerial circus performer,” says Anderson. She adds, “These items include Virgin of Guadalupe dresses, revolutionary braids, crown of thorns, wings, flowers, rosaries, boas, false eyelashes and makeup – a dream for young girls. The final portraits are amalgams of our cultural and personal influences.”

Ri Anderson holds an MFA in Photography from Massachusetts College of Art, and resides in Mexico.

She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most recently as a finalist for Critical Mass, Photolucida, Portland, Oregon for 2011, 2007, and 2006.

Her work has been exhibited at Galeria 6 in Mineral de Pozos, Gto., Mexico, and La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada. She was the featured Northeast Exposure Online Artist at the Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA in 2005.

Leonard Nimoy grew up in Boston, where he first experienced the magic of making photographic images at age 13, developing them in the small apartment’s family bathroom—turned darkroom. Nimoy continued his photographic explorations throughout his life, studying at UCLA under Robert Heineken in the early 1970s. He later received an “artist in residence” appointment at the American Academy in Rome.

Now Mr. Nimoy’s photographs are coming back to Boston with 3 concurrent exhibitions spanning 60 years of work.

A series of Nimoy’s images, Shekhina, will be featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, March 20 through May 8, 2014. An opening reception is March 20, 6-8 p.m. All photographs are courtesy of the artist and R. Michelson Gallery in Northampton, MA. The R. Michelson Gallery in Northampton will also have Leonard Nimoy photographs on view in Northampton. www.rmichelson.com
Boston University will exhibit Secret Selves in their Sherman Gallery from Wednesday, March 19 – Friday, May 9, 2014.

Gallery 555 in South Boston will exhibit Eye Contact from March 27 to May 3.
Leonard Nimoy says that he is intrigued with the biblical mythology that tells us that God created a divine feminine presence to dwell amongst humanity. “This concept has had a constant influence on my work, say Nimoy. I have imagined [Shekhina] as ubiquitous, watchful and often in motion. It is in effect, the photographic image of the invisible.”
[My work from Shekhina] is my quest for insight, says Nimoy. It has put me in constant touch with the question of my own spirituality and has been a deeply moving and expanding process. The pictures now look to me like dreams brought to consciousness as a valuable bridge to a part of myself too often submerged by daily activities in the physical world.”

The exhibit is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Photography Monthly Audio Interview: Leonard Nimoy

Nancy Grace Horton intends her work to confront the viewer with their hidden preconceptions, in regard to women’s roles constructed within society.

A series of her images, Ms. Behavior, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, January 9 through March 14, 2014. A reception and informal talk with the artist is January 9th from 6-8 p.m.

“My photographs are investigations of female gender roles as influenced by American culture and mass media,” says Horton. “This body of work is a 21st century extension of feminist concerns regarding the media’s portrayal of women. More specifically, I am interested in the explicit and implicit power relations that are constructed and maintained by mediatized systems of representation.”

“Horton visualizes the outcome of each of her photographs but the end result is not always as planned,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “Horton unleashes her creative spirit to fashion very visual narratives that give the viewer much to think about and imagine,” says Tognarelli.

Kathy Ryan, Director of Photography for the “New York Times Magazine” says of Horton’s most recent series, Ms Behavior, “Horton has fun with domestic conventions by dressing up her feminist fictional scenes.”

Nancy Grace Horton holds an MFA in Visual Arts from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, and has been working as a freelance photographer and educator for over 20 years.

She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most recently an Artists Entrepreneurial Grant from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, where she is also an “Arts in Education” artist.

Her work has been exhibited at The Danforth Museum, Worcester Art Museum, The Griffin Museum and the Marshall Store Gallery.

Alicia Savage explores time, place and person through this series of self-portraits. Inner landscape is inspired by physical settings of locations such as the Nova Scotia farmhouse of her maternal grandmother, a lake front family homestead, and the odd hotel room encountered on her journeys.

A series of her photographs, Savage Beauty, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging in Belmont, MA, October 4 through December 6, 2013. An opening reception with the artist will be October 4, 2013 from 6:00 to 8:00pm.

“Photography has opened my mind and heart to understand myself and the world beyond what is assumed; to always be inspired by my curiosity and imagination of what is and could be,” says Savage.

Alicia Savage is an emerging self-portrait photographer based in the Boston area. Her imagery captures recorded reflections of herself exploring life and new experiences, revealing both her subconscious and surroundings in what seems to be familiar, yet unknown to the viewer.

Miah Nate Johnson finds art in routine aspects of everyday life.

A series of his photographs, Perceptions, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, July 3 through August 26. A reception with the artist is August 8, 6-8 p.m.

“The images are typically ordinary moments between ordinary people, nothing special, as they say,” Johnson explains. “But for me there is beauty in such experiences and an instinctual need to look rather than look away.”

“Why should we care about the everyday mundane? It is because through the act of bearing witness, we transform the mundane into art.”

Johnson says the series of black and white images “juxtaposes parallel or mirroring images that subtly bring the viewer into relationship with seemingly disparate elements. In these images, relationships emerge slowly and sometimes bestow themselves with a finality.”

He adds, “My work explores the relationship between the constructed backdrops of modern society and the individuals who play out their private, human dramas within and against these public spaces.”

Johnson began working for wire services, including the Associated Press, while in college. After graduating from the Academy of Art in San Francisco, he traveled to Eastern Europe to photograph scenes from the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

After returning to New York, he spent a year at Magnum Photos. His work has since taken him to unexplored islands off the coast of Africa, as an underwater photographer, and to Hollywood movie sets, where he contributed still photography to the films Sphere and War of the Worlds.

His clients include National Geographic, National Geographic Channel, The New York Times, The City SUN, World Wildlife Fund, American Red Cross, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures, among others.

Johnson’s awards include a 1994 Picture of the Year for magazine pictorial, as well as honors from the Chicago International Film Festival, EPIC Festival, and Houston Innerspace.

He lives and has a studio/darkroom in Wellfleet, MA, and is the recipient of five Massachusetts Cultural Art Council regional grants.

The Griffin satellite gallery, which had been at 4 Clarendon St. in Boston’s South End, has moved back to its renovated and expanded space in Belmont.