Cynthia Katz‘s work takes the wildness of nature to the next level, breaking down recognizable images into individual puzzle pieces. This project is currently on display at the Griffin Museum of Photography’s exhibition Elemental Blues at the Griffin’s satellite gallery at Lafayette City Center, from April 1st through June 30th. We had the enlightening opportunity to sit down and chat about her peculiar cyanotypes via email this week, and her responses are as follows.
Please join us on the following dates for an online conversation with the artists:
May 21st Panel: Sally Chapman, Julia Whitney Barnes, and Anna Leigh Clem.
May 28th Panel: Brett Windham, Bryan Whitney, and Cynthia Katz.
Cynthia Katz is an award-winning photo-based artist working in the Boston area. Her cyanotypes, one of the earliest forms of photographic technology dating back to 1842, are created in a way that is relevant and meaningful in current times. Process and discovery have been guiding forces that link all her work. This work has been described as being both mysterious and familiar, has been shown regionally and nationally, most recently at Three Stones Gallery, Jessica Hagen Gallery, The Danforth Art Museum, The Fitchburg Art Museum, and Soho Photo Gallery in NYC. In 2024 Katz was recognized by LensCulture’s Art Photography Awards as a finalist and a juror’s pick. She was awarded the Photography Prize at the 2024 Fitchburg Art Museum’s Exhibition of Art and Craft and was the first prize recipient in Soho Photo Gallery’s 2024 Alternative Process Competition. Her work is published in journals, books and blogs, including Manifest’s International Photography Annual 3, SlowSpace.org and LensCulture. Cynthia’s recent presentations include “Handmade Photographs” at the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Three Stones Gallery and at Concord Art. She is represented by Jessica Hagen Gallery in Newport, RI. Her work is housed in private collections. Cynthia earned a BFA in Photography from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in Photography from Bennington College. She maintains a studio at The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, MA, and she lives in West Concord. Cynthia has been around photographs and photography her whole life. Her father was a NYC free-lance advertising photographer. Pictured here, Cynthia, her brothers and her Dad, DAKA, on a shoot. Her father used family members as models whenever possible.
Follow Cynthia Katz | Instagram: @cynthiakatzstudio
Your cyanotype prints are typically arranged in a grid format and reconnected in a mismatched manner. What draws you to abstract photography, and more specifically, the grid format?
Cynthia Katz: The grid format you refer to is from a body of work entitled Almost Gone. In Elemental Blues the piece from that series is entitled New. The series’ origin came from mining an overflowing box of failures that were about to go into a bonfire. As I was ripping up pieces, I noticed elements I liked/thought they worked and selected a photographic format that I’ve used a lot (645), and began to cut out rectangular segments. Hence, the work was “Almost Gone” to ashes. In this series, I RECLAIM, REIMAGINE and RESTORE visual elements, creating new narratives that reference the earth, the world under the sea and the cosmic world. I’ve always loved grids, and I have used them to put together disparate parts, creating new wholes. I love forms, lines, shapes, texture and pattern and the way abstraction can still carry meaning.
Walk us through the process of creating one of these grid systems? What parts are you most methodical?
CK: All of my work is very process oriented. I don’t map things out ahead of time. I cut out rectangles (I’m also using squares now), RECLAIMING parts I like. When I have a stack to draw from, I start searching for visual connections—REIMAGINING how new forms come together, and then work from there. There is a lot of moving pieces around and exchanging pieces, even up to the actual adhering of the segments onto the background paper (using a piece of 2 ply board to give it some lift), changing parts to find the best way to move the viewer’s eye through the composition. I’m mindful of needed pauses to balance busy areas, and the way the different colors flow is important. After all is said and done, I hopefully have RESTORED the parts into a new whole that is read both in totality and for its details.
Regarding the content of your work, many of them appear to feature negatives of botanicals as well as families. What about these two categories of subjects makes them a fascinating reference for your work?
CK: The only parts that are from negatives are the families. And they are MY FAMILY. I found old family negatives, so these are my ancestors. Some I know (my mom, my grandparents, aunts and uncles) but many are just part of my history… unfortunately I’ve lost the information of who they are.
The rest of the imagery is from objects (flowers, stones, seeds, etc.) around my yard and gardens. Cyanotypes are a contact print process, so it’s a 1:1 relationship for scale. Thus both the negatives and the objects are actual size.
I’ve been a gardener since I was little. I learned by my mom’s side helping her. I often plant flowers that I want to photograph, or use in these cyanotypes. And my garden comes together in the same way as these grids… little by little, plant by plant. I’ve photographed people and places for a long time, so this is an outgrowth of that other part of my practice.
In your artist’s statement, you describe your process as methodical and slow, mentioning that your prints include a “dose of politics and news.” How do these aspects of your creative process influence your cyanotype prints?
CK: I am a news junkie (which has been tough in these times) but it wasn’t until the first T-administration that I started using topics of immigration or war as impetus for my work. Kids in cages, border crossings, or the Ukraine War (I found out I am not Russian but Ukrainian during the war from a cousin who is researching our family) became subtle points of departure for making work. The piece Red, White and Very Blue in the show was referencing the way that the flag has become weaponized, but also the way our country has been divided and polarized, which makes me really sad. I don’t know that someone would look at the work without a statement or title, or hearing me talk about it and see political content. When I am printing cyanotypes now, I’m often thinking about our origin stories, our paths, our search for ourselves in the universe and on this blue planet.
What piece is most important to you (in this collection) that you want to highlight/spotlight?
CK: It’s funny that the three pieces in the exhibition are each from a different series, yet share a color palette that is based on straight cyanotypes. Hopefully they also are united by a consistent feel. The piece New One from the series Almost Gone is quite different from the rest of that work, being more minimal in color range and forms. Here, I worked with a color palette that was consistent and forms that were bold and repeat, vs. having a wide range of color, tonalities, and image forms. Almost Gone as a body of work has been pivotal to my growth and practice as an artist. It’s allowed me to consider failure in new ways and draw on abstraction in a medium (photography) that is typically representative and referential. Not to dilute the importance of New One, the other two pieces in the exhibit hold an important place for me in my current practice representing the two other ways I’m currently working.
Looking at the other artists in the exhibition, what artworks have caught your attention, and why?
CK: I’ve been familiar with the work of some of the artists in this show, all of whom I’m grateful to be sharing space with. I think our different approaches using cyanotypes enlarges the conversations about photography and historic forms. I love the way Bryan Whitney’s work is both simple and complex, and the luminosity is striking. There is an elegance and a majesty to his pieces. We were in a show together a couple years ago at Soho Photo Gallery in NYC, and I was captivated by his work from the start.
Willow Simon (b. June 28th, 2005)
Willow Simon is a rising sophomore at Wesleyan University, currently majoring in English and History, and planning on minoring in Middle Eastern Studies. She specializes in journalism and creative writing and is passionate about working in audio.
Griffin Museum of Photography – Winchester, Massachusetts
The Griffin Museum @ Lafayette City Center Passageway – Boston, Massachusetts
