The Griffin Museum at Greater Boston Stage Company

Ellen Feldman has been photographing a modern dancer, Nicole Pierce for many years. In this exhibition Feldman places Pierce into frames of a Marvel Fantastic Four (FF) comic book as her alter ego Invisible Girl.

A series of Feldman’s photographs, the Dancer as the Invisible Girl, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, January 16 through March 16, 2014. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions Seminar and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

Feldman holds a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University. She is the Photography Editor of the Women’s Review of Books, a bi-monthly journal published by Wellesley College.

"Through the comic form I explore how movement is limited and fragmented by the frame,” says Feldman. “The primacy of the frame links comics to photography. Comic artists and photographers love cramming things into a frame, cutting the body off
mid-limb, or keeping lots of space around the figure."

"It’s a paradox that invisibility, generally a mark of powerlessness, is the super-human quality for the only female of the Fantastic Four," says Feldman. "As a street photographer, I well understand the paradox of power that derives from invisibility."

Feldman will informally talk about her work at the gallery opening on January 16, 2014 and her comic book will be available for sale.

Frank Yamrus is a fine art photographer who, after twenty years of working, living and playing in San Francisco, moved to New York City in 2010. Yamrus, with mixed emotions, packed up his studio and returned to his East Coast roots. The I Feel Lucky collection of self-portraits is his first body of work completed since his move.

A series of his photographs, I Feel Lucky, will be featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, November 14, 2013 through January 12, 2014
A reception is November 14, 2013, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

"Originally inspired by the onset of my first (and hopefully last) midlife crisis, I created the I Feel Lucky collection of self-portraits between my 47th and 53rd birthdays. Initially titled Less Than or Equal to 50, this series began with a looming deadline of my 50th birthday, as if on this milestone my midlife crisis would magically resolve itself. At the time, typical midlife crisis issues – relationships, faith, career, health and mortality – were producing classic midlife crisis symptoms – moodiness, exhaustion, the desire to make change and some deafening private politics of self-identity. With my camera, my constant companion during this time, I contemplated a lifetime of choices and created present-day images to evaluate my past with the hope of glimpsing my future."

During his 25-year photographic career Yamrus has produced many significant portfolios addressing such topics like his relationship with his father, the loss of multiple friends to HIV/AIDS, and love, romance, sex and rapture. Yamrus’ images can be found in many public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art, The Kinsey Institute of Indiana University, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He is represented by ClampArt in New York City, the Albert Merola Gallery in Provincetown, MA and the Catherine Couturier Gallery in Houston, TX.

Bremner Benedict has been photographing her daughter moving from youth to maturity in settings that portray her on-going experience with the landscape.

A series of her photographs, Re-imagining Eden, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, September 12 through November 10, 2013. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions “Seminar” and “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.”

A reception is September 25, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Benedict graduated from New York University and earned a BFA at Western Washington University. She also studied at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College and at the Maine Photographic Workshops Residency Program.

"Today, we are involved in a vast cultural shift where our direct experience of nature is being replaced by a virtual one," Benedict says. "How this ultimately will affect our society’s attitudes towards nature and its resources is a question for our modern era."

"The arc of my daughter’s participation – from childlike fascination to wistful fantasy to disengagement – is a metaphor for society’s move away from identifying with nature," she says. "It corresponds to our greater separation from the natural world."

Benedict will informally talk about her work at the gallery opening on September 25, 2013.

As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, who escaped Germany in 1939 to open camera stores in Florida, Jill Enfield has always been passionate about the immigrant experience.

A series of her photographs, The New Americans, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, May 23 through July 23. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions “These Shining Lives” and “The Marvelous Wonderettes.”

A reception is June 20, 6-7:30 p.m.

A fine art and commercial photographer, Enfield spent 20 years focusing on still lives and landscapes. Recently, she has turned her attention to portraits.

“As a protest against the profiling and prejudice that has emerged over the last decade, I have been photographing immigrants with the notion that all people who relocate to the United States enrich our hosting culture with their own foreign experience,” Enfield says.

“Just as the immigrants of yesteryear were ignored or treated with suspicion, so, too, are the new Americans,” she says. “We make the same mistakes based on ignorance and fail to perceive the potential of adventurous risk-takers who are more likely than most to transcend the odds and achieve something great. With these strange newcomers arrive new delicacies, art, fashion, architecture, and thought. Every culture evolves because new ideas come in from cultures far away.”

Enfield is working with Mary Panzer, an internationally recognized scholar of photography and its history, on a series about new Americans. Panzer interviews the subjects of Enfield’s portraits, which will be shown at Ellis Island in NY in the fall of 2013.

Enfield has taught hand coloring and non-silver techniques at schools in New York City and throughout the US and Europe. Her work is in collections and has appeared in many magazines around the world.

One of her images was among 42 selected from thousands through the Here Is New York Archive to commemorate the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

Robert Moran says the photographs in this series explore his reaction to heights and “the fear, fascination, and curiosity they engender in me and the perverse thoughts they inspire.”

The series, Vertigo, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, March 18 through May 19. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions “The Rat Pack Returns” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”

Closing reception May 2, 2013, 6 – 7:30 has been cancelled to circumstances beyond our control

“On a personal level, these photographs are an examination of my lifelong experience of vertigo,” Moran says. “They explore the connection between my most disturbing thoughts and the structures that inspire those thoughts.”

And, he says, “On a more universal level, they are an attempt to celebrate life’s everyday sights and often unnoticed scenery – the quotidian world that contains life’s wonder and speaks to its mysterious uncertainty.”

The images of towers, billboards, and tall buildings have been cut apart and rearranged into collages that juxtapose the structures’ shapes, sizes, and purposes. In the final step, color and texture have been added.

Moran, a fine art photographer, lives on Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine. His interest in photography began at age 12. After studying art at the University of Maine, he ran several businesses over the course of 20 years.

During that time, he pursued personal photography projects on trips to Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific. His recent undertakings have taken him to Cuba and Antarctica.

Moran’s work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the U.S. His photographs are included in private collections in the U.S., as well as in Australia and Europe. His award-winning photographs have recently been published in The Photo Review, Shots Magazine, and B&W + Color Magazine.

Saul Robbins examines the empty chairs and office surroundings of psychotherapy professionals based in Manhattan, New York, from the point of view of the clients.

“From this vantage point I wish to reference the perceptions, associations, and responses to this very private environment, and the work that takes place there,” he says.

A series of his photographs, Initial Intake, is featured in the Griffin Museum at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, January 22 through March 17. It runs parallel to the theater’s concert by The Edwards Twins.

A reception with the artist is January 31, 6-7:30 p.m.

“For many, the role of a psychotherapist holds significant weight and the importance attributed to him or her is one of profound influence in many of our lives, “ Robbins says. “Viewers are encouraged to consider the inherent personality in each of these environments, and the place of power being held across from them on a regular basis.”

Robbins’ family includes psychotherapists and he says, “This series stems from the belief that long-term challenges can be resolved by examining patterns in personal and familial history. It grew directly out of my response to one particular therapeutic relationship, and the necessity of questioning the efficacy and treatment of working with that practitioner.”

Robbins earned a master’s of fine arts degree from Hunter College in New York in 1999 and teaches photography at the International Center of Photography and Pratt Institute in New Work, as well as master workshops in Europe.

Robbins is speaking at the opening reception of Initial Intake.