The Griffin Museum@WinCAM

The Griffin Museum is pleased to host Jake Benzinger’s Like Dust Settling in a Dim-lit Room (Or Starless Forest) in our satellite WinCAM gallery.

Artist Statement

Like Dust Settling in a Dim-lit Room (Or Starless Forest) constructs a liminal world that explores the intersection of reality, dream, and memory. Through photography, this body of work functions as a mirror, a reflection of my inner psyche and an investigation of identity, relationships, the domestic, and the natural world.

This process, with its focus on the self, is rooted in an attempt to heal. The exploration of ordinary locations, places devoid of people and often characterized by the presence of flora, have functioned as a refuge in my personal life. By frequenting these places, I began to see them as sets, utilizing them to construct my visions. I imbue them with fragments of the people, places, and memories that inhabit my subconscious.

I fail to find stability in the societal constructs of home and family; so I seek to create it in the natural world. Through the dislocation of these places and the infusion of nature into the domestic, this work constructs a fleeting world that lives in ambiguity. This space is familiar yet still foreign; it is a constructed world that visualizes my deepest desires and greatest fears.

About

Jake Benzinger (he/him) is a photographer and book artist based in Rockland, Maine; he received his BFA in photography from Lesley University, College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA. His work explores the intersection of dreamscape and reality. Through the dislocation of space, he weaves together imagery to construct a world that exists in the liminal, investigating themes of duality, longing, identity, and the natural world.

He is currently a gallery assistant at Blue Raven Gallery and recently had work featured by Fraction Magazine, alongside exhibiting both internationally and in the greater Boston area. His most recent body of work, Like Dust Settling in a Dim-Lit Room (Or Starless Forest), was recently self-published and has sold out of its first edition hardcover books, with a second coming in November, 2023.

I view land as firm, solid and reliable – our principal habitat.  Conversely, I recognize that water is literally fluid and equally vital to our existence.  It’s hard to envision how water, which is so physically compliant in many ways, can supersede, overpower, and ultimately reshape the land.  Water scarcity creates new deserts — where life struggles or fails to exist at all.  

Using silver nitrate and cyanotype (made with sea water), I experiment with methods of applying the chemistry (sea sponges, for example) to paper and the overall process (layering paper).  Through this, I attempt to explore the relationships of land and water which are now changing more frequently and deeply — with greater consequence to all living things. 

My mammalian brain is disquieted.  My regional habitat now vacillates between drought and deluge.   I see the living world struggle as it attempts to evolve.  Land is revealed or deposited, water carves new pathways and erodes the land.  

About Connie Lowell

A native New Englander, Connie Lowell has spent much of her adult life in a cubicle, staring at a screen or if fortunate, out a window.  Feeling disconnected from the natural outdoor world, she developed a passion for nature’s systems and the connections within and among species over the course of time.  Lowell frequently finds herself preoccupied with the many and varied changes humanity has introduced within the natural environment.  Residing now in New Hampshire, Lowell’s work strives to reflect nature or the natural processes by employing a variety of mechanisms and methods to capture, print and create visual, photographic art works. Lowell’s works have been selected for numerous juried shows across the US and has appeared in the Boston Globe and ArtScope Magazine in relation to exhibits.  The images Lowell creates explore humanity and our relationship to the natural world as well as investigating our fellow occupants and the relationships among us all.

THE POWER OF THREE

Make it different. Keep it the same. It just takes three pictures to start and confirm a pathway.  There are
no winners: no bronze, silver, or gold medals. They’re all equal and yet all different. With a pathway the
next pictures are always a surprise. Sameness provides consistency; difference the accumulation that
creates chronology. The power of three can also operate with projects over time. It’s the way the
audiences we never meet get to know our work, reaching them with something new in every picture and
every new project while still being the same photographer. It’s the way we see the world that becomes
the unifier, the pathway marker. In this exhibition, seven pathways are presented with seven texts by me.
– Arno Rafael Minkkinen

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We look forward to seeing you on Thursday May 25th for a celebration with the artists at Griffin @ WinCam

The Griffin @ WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

Learn more about the artists included in the Power of Three

Leah Abrahams –

 

LEAH ABRAHAMS – THE MISSING PIECE OF THE PUZZLE
Like a long-lost missing piece of a puzzle that suddenly pops up from under a carpet, the photographs of Leah Abrahams defy classification. Subject matter entails everything from everywhere all at once, as this year’s Oscar winner would have it. Or they could be like treasures—an isolated spoon, a teacup with the wrong sauce—from a hide-away thrift shop in Leesburg, Florida, a town filled with eclectic images around every corner, just about any random town where  everything is brand new will do. Pathway? You bet. If consistency is the goal, eclecticism meets it head on because every picture will always be different and never the same. The consistency of difference becomes the Power of Three to create the pathway. If you’re always late, you’re on time kind of thing. Predictability is the formula. Repetition without repetition. Same but different. Only for that to be of interest, every image needs to grab us with its own power, be it beauty, ugliness, point of view, or whatever attribute it strikes us with. It takes a certain amount of daring and risk taking to create such islands and stand by them, trust them as Leah Abrahams does with confidence and grace.

For eclecticism to take place, discovery, and invention both play a part. The Pacific Ocean was always there; it just needed to be discovered. Invention reassembles what is known and uses it to create the new. The eclectic work of
Abrahams sits on the fulcrum of that constantly oscillating invention-discovery see-saw (see=invent; saw= discover). It assumes the past, the present, and the future are but part of life’s drive-through. And then there is that puzzle piece, so impossible to know what extends from it. Where it fits in? Where do I fit in? So, what better way to organize a response to the existential nature of one’s
universe than creating a body of work that celebrates it all?
© Arno Rafael Minkkinen, 2023

 

… [Read More]

The Eurocentric tradition of still life has a long history of appropriating elements from cultures that it considered “exotic” while maintaining  authoritative artistic dominance on the practice. In response, Open Flowers Bear Fruit (Asian American Still Life) is an on-going project that claims space in this venerated tradition for Asian American cultural experiences, directly from an Asian American perspective. The project creates an overdue dialogue between the symbology of Eurocentric still life with that of Asian diaspora traditions.

On a personal level, the series features home comfort foods from my upbringing as a Taiwanese-Chinese American—foods that are derided as “strange” in the U.S. but hold quotidian significance in Chinese culture. At the same time, the series questions the ideals of the nostalgic “All-American” experience as a daughter of immigrants, asking to what extent immigrant experiences can dovetail with notions of Americanness. On a community level, I partner with Asian American small business owners throughout the series, foregrounding their food practices that make up the now multicultural culinary landscape that pervades California. These partnerships have allowed me to present perspectives and lived experiences from the numerous cultures that feed the otherwise monolithic label of “Asian American.”

About Stephanie Shih –

Stephanie Shih is a visual still life artist, known for her painterly use of shadow applied to playful perspectives on food. Shih started making photographs with her dad’s half-frame camera on childhood road trips, but only took up photography seriously later in life while in graduate school. At the time, she moonlighted as a caterer, and translating the experience of food to the visual image has been a driving through line of her work ever since.

As a second generation Taiwanese-Chinese American, Shih explores themes of cultural dynamics—belonging,alienation, appropriation, celebration—through her still life photographs. Shih’s photography has been featured in print outlets including Elle Girl Korea, 7×7, and Gastronomica, and online on Gourmet Live,, Saveur, Fine Cooking, and Buzzfeed.

Shih is from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in Los Angeles. When not in the studio or kitchen creating, she is a professor at University of Southern California.

The Griffin @ WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

I like to explore the world at night. Night lighting with its mix of sources and colors, makes the commonplace magical. There is often a peace and serenity in the dark: An opportunity to see and experience things differently.
I add lighting to my images. Sometimes I add flourishes of light or draw in elements. Sometimes the subjects are so dark that I need to light them, for the camera to capture them. Sometimes the light itself becomes the subject.
These images are from a project titled “Becoming Light”. They show transformation from stillness to motion, from dark to light, from body to energy.
Light painting has a performance element to it; in that respect it is like dance. Gesture and awareness of body in space are important. My movements and my lighting bring different elements to life, painting the picture.

About the Artist –

Lisa Ryan is a night photographer and light painter.  The influence of her fine arts education can be seen in her use of light to draw and paint. Working with various light tools she incorporates gestures and movement. In addition to lighting landscapes at night, she creates scenes, including clothing the figure and creating night gardens from light.

Ryan’s photographs have been exhibited in shows presented by the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA, the Center for Photographic Art, Carmel CA and in many juried exhibits throughout the US.  She has curated group exhibits of night photography at the Front Street Gallery, Scituate MA and at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury MA.

Her images have been featured in print and digital publications including NASA’s APOD, “RechargeTheArts”, a juried group exhibition on Instagram, Fraction Magazine, and The Literate Image.

Ryan has been co-organizer of the Greater Boston Night Photographers Meetup since 2014.

First Light

 I have always found solace and a spiritual connection in nature.

Twelve years ago, as I was entering retirement, I had the good fortune to buy a small cottage on Cape Cod with large windows overlooking a simple pond.   About that same time, I discovered photography, and have probably recorded several thousand photos just of this pond alone. 

I usually rise with the light and greet the pond.  The morning sky and the view continually change, and I take photos from my window, my dock, or my kayak.

As I began to “live more in this landscape”, I looked deeper in order to share the connection I felt.  I began to reimagine the landscape–moving from taking one photo to blending multiple exposures, and seeing the landscape as transparent, fragile— and magical.   

These photos are a celebration of my pond in the morning light.

Bonnie Newman is a photographer, outdoor enthusiast and avid traveler. With her camera, she experiences and captures the splendor of nature, compelling moments, and new environments. 

Newman finds inspiration in nature, whether an expansive landscape or a detail that catches her eye. She sees abstraction everywhere and is attracted to shapes, transparency, distortion and fragmentation. Her recent landscape work utilizes the techniques of transparency and reflection, double exposure, and intentional camera movement to reveal her singular vision of a scene. The resulting images vacillate between serene and edgy, offering a flight from reality combined with a hint of mystery.

Newman’s photographs have been exhibited in a solo show at the Cary Public Library in Lexington MA.  She has also exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography and juried in to group exhibitions at the Cambridge Art Association, Arlington Center for the Arts, Plymouth Center for the Arts, and Gallery Twist in Lexington.  

She photographs for the Brewster Conservation Trust and the Town of Lexington Conservation Department, and her photos are on display at Brewster (MA) Town Hall, and the Lexington (MA) Visitor’s Center and in private collections.

Newman has taken photography courses with Emily Belz at the Arlington Center for the Arts, Griffin Museum of Photography, and the DeCordova Museum. (2015-2020).  She participated in the Atelier 33 at the Griffin, has taken online workshops with Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery, and  workshops on Cape Cod with Steven Koppel and Julia Cumes .

Newman lives in Lexington and Brewster MA.

WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050

When I dump compost into the bin behind our garage, avocado peels, orange rinds and eggshells mix and mingle, creating textured and colorful tapestries. How can food waste be so beautiful? I am in awe of the kaleidoscope of nitrogen and carbon rich materials that nourish the soil and the soul.
While a single bucket of compost can feel inconsequential, when I keep showing up, this weekly ‘chore’ impacts not just the waste stream and my inner climate activist, but also my sense of personal equilibrium in uncertain times. The images are square, like the bin itself. There are no hierarchies. Each one reveals a necessary reciprocity and balance between the diverse materials as well as between
me and the natural world.
Over the course of twelve years, I’ve processed three tons of my family’s food waste, one bucket-full at a time as well as ten tons from a local cafe. In the process, compost became my muse and metaphor, inspiring me to explore the detritus of our lives. Objects, like a vintage Shakespeare and my mother-in-law’s thesaurus found new meaning when mixed with food scraps, inspiring questions about not just food waste and consumption, but also about privilege and the power of narrative.
I live in Hanover, NH where I have spent the past fifteen years trying to figure out what it takes for a suburban family of four to live sustainably. In response to profound climate grief, practical actions like composting gave me a sense of purpose. I am a founding member of the Sustainable Hanover Committee and have found a voice for my activism through photography.
As the climate reaches a tipping point, composting enriches the soil and these images educate, inspire and provide meditations on the power of regeneration, transformation and renewal.

About Lyn Swett Miller

I am an emerging climate photographer happiest mucking around with the detritus of life. While investigating compost, landfills and other aspects of our material world, I create visual meditations on the power of regeneration, transformation and renewal.

For the past two decades, I have been exploring what it takes for a suburban family of four to live sustainably. While my early work focused on documenting the beauty and power of all those actions on climate ‘to do’ lists, I now explore the dynamic relationship between myself and the material world. “Subjects” are no longer “taken,” but are instead collaborators with whom I learn to cultivate kinship

Compost is my muse and metaphor and is where I go to make sense of the world. Photography enables me to share the beauty I see in our waste and the possibilities for joy embodied in the apparent mess. My work offers deeply personal narratives that inspire conversation about consumption and our relationships to people, place and possessions.

My hope is that this work inspires you to reframe how you think about the climate crisis. Perhaps the images of compost on this site will make you smile and see that there is joy in re-imagining our relationships to just about everything.

WinCam is located in Winchester, at 32 Swanton Road, Winchester, MA 01890

The WinCam Gallery hours are Monday: 11am – 7pmTuesday: 11am – 7pm Wednesday: 11am – 7pm Thursday: 1pm – 9pm Friday: 1pm – 7pm Saturday: 10am – 3pm select Saturdays. Call for availability. (781) 721-2050