The results are in! Over 2,000 images were submitted to our jurors Frances Jakubek and Iaritza Menjivar, and narrowed to 60. Thank you to everyone in our Griffin artist community who submitted images, making this jurying process so difficult.

We are thrilled to showcase this years artists as part of our larger creative artists community.

The artists included (in alphabetical order)

Debe Arlook, Deborah Arsenault, Rachel Boillot, Sally Bousquet, Lynne Breitfeller, Tuan Bui, Annette LeMay Burke, Bill Chapman, Richard S. Chow, Seth Cook, Alexa Cushing, Caroline Dejeneffe, Dena Eber, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Miren Etcheverry, Jo Fields, Karen Finkel-Fishoff, Beth Galton, Victoria Gewirz, Marsha Guggenheim, Andrew Harris, Margaret Hart, William Hamlin, Liam Hayes, Chehalis Hegner, Eileen Homuth Lemonick, Nanci Kahn, Nancy Kaye, Jeff Larason, Hannah Latham, Denise Laurinatis, Lisa Levine, Susan Lirakis, Rob Lorino, Fruma Markowitz, CoCo McCabe, Eric McCollum, Lyn Miller, Amy Montali, Ania Moussawei, Laila Nahar, Jim Nickelson, Caroline Nicola, Harold Olejarz, Annie Omens, David Oxton, Laurie Peek, Heather Pillar, Allison Plass, Robin Radin, Astrid Reischwitz, Georgina Reskala, Katherine Richmond, Mike Ritter, Karin Rosenthal, Claudia Ruiz-Gustafson, Anastasia Sierra, Stefanie Timmerman, Marsha Wilcox and Jonas Yip.

Congratulations to our Award Winners!

AWARDS:

• $1,000 Arthur Griffin Legacy Award – Liam Hayes
• $500 Griffin Award – Anastasia Sierra
• $100 Honorable Mentions (5) – Seth Cook, Margaret Hart, Laila Nahar, Stefanie Timmerman and William Hamlin

Exhibitions Awards –

• Directors Prize – Jason Reblando
• Exhibition Prize –

In addition to our in person exhibition, we have a selection of works in our ONLINE exhibition.  Take a look here for 60 more featured artists from our Griffin Community.

To purchase a catalog featuring the work of both the in person and online selected artists find it in our Museum Shop here.

From juror Iaritza Menjivar –

While clicking on each image, I was struck by the amount of feelings coming (or blasting) through the screen. At first there was a peculiar sentiment of sadness, or emptiness, perhaps. But the more I looked, the more I understood what I was sensing– life and real emotions. The past couple of years have been at the very least crazy and for many, life-changing. The world around us feels heavy— for the very first time we were asked to stop and feel and there was no escaping that. And now that we have experienced the “pause”, why is there a need to press play again? The photograph of the woman looking at herself, face to face through the reflection of water reminds us what it feels like to look inward. 

This collection of photographs showcases a range of moments; The image of the man surrounded by plastic, playing a piano, living inside a bubble of isolation; The mother and child split between the darkness but connected through the strikes of light illuminating the contrasting moments of motherhood; The culmination of textured landscapes involving nature and man-made structures all standing still in the midst of an estranged world. Or a still-life literally taken apart and threaded back together showing the depth and complexity of everyday moments. Finally, there are images made and manipulated by the artists creating alternate realities.

When viewing photographs as outsiders, we hold subjective opinions. We relate with the work by reflecting the things we are seeing and feeling at that precise moment. In this special moment of bringing the work together, we find that we are connected by this strange time of growth, discovery, and new ways of seeing the world around us. We are bound by the intention behind the work.

Thank you to the Griffin Museum community for always welcoming me. And a special thank you to Paula Tognarelli for the years of guidance and for inviting me as juror for the Annual Juried Members Exhibition with Frances Jakubek.

From juror Frances Jakubek –

Photographs tend to carry a literal way of conveying emotion. Our function as viewers is to build a bridge integrating the artists’ objective with our own interpretation, all while keeping space for new understanding. We recycle our visions of the past into our present and it can be easier to welcome a sensation when you are familiar with it compared to accepting a remote and new feeling. Instead of discarding unfamiliar emotions, what does it look like when they all exist in the same room?
The goal when compiling the members’ show was to expand upon what we consider a photograph and how the images communicate with each other and what the audience may take away. It was important to include a variety of processes, deeply personal tales, political works, and modern considerations of landscape.

What strikes me most about this collection of images is the sense of community, even in solitary moments. Most of the photographs are incredibly intimate and many achieve that without depicting actual bodies. We are welcomed into the lives of these photographers by witnessing their quietest moments, the way they interact with their subjects, and what they’ve decided to keep and render permanent by way of photography. The exhibition has the artists’ fingerprints all over it.
We see subjects laughing, crying, hiding, and declaring their territory. Fantastical landscapes show beside traditional portraits, and all come from a space of self-actualization. We see depictions of growth, the emptiness of change, the thoroughness of distrust, and the joy of storytelling. We invite you to make a little space for sensations that may seem unwelcome at first.

It was very special to work with Iaritza Menjivar to curate this exhibition for an institution we both love and have grown in. Thank you to Paula Tognarelli for giving me a chance, both then and now. With great appreciation for Crista Dix and Ryan Sholtis, I am glad to be part of this Griffin family who is accepting and encouraging of photographers and explorers alike.

PhotoSynthesis XVII is a collaboration between Burlington High School and Winchester High School facilitated by the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Join us on June 12th from 4 to 6pm for an Artist Reception to celebrate these talented student works and meet their instructors and supporters.

Now in its seventeenth year, this 5-month program connects approximately 25 students with each other and professional photographers, artists and curators. Using photography as a visual language, student’s increase their vocabulary to communicate about themselves and the world around them. Interacting with fellow students from different programs, backgrounds and schools the students create a capsule of who they are in this moment, learning from each other to create a united exhibition showcasing all they have learned during the program.

Students from Burlington High School –

Lindsay Bullock, Caileigh Connolly, Samantha Goneau, Mary Kate Hayes, Alyssa LoCicero, Alexander McGillvray, Georgia Doherty, Zachary Doucette, Lindsey Lavioe, Caroline Sciarratta, Isabelle James, Paul Fauller and Navya Garg

Students from Winchester High School –

Alex Azzarra, Neave Bunting, Ibny Xian Crookson, Claire English, Marly Exantus, Sophia Lubin, McKenna McDaniels, Athena Wang, Zoe Xanthopoulos

The students are given the task of creating a body of work that communicates a sense of self and place.  They were encouraged to explore the importance of props, the environment, facial expression, metaphor, and body language in portrait photography.

This year, two photo based artists, Alanna Airitam and Granville Carroll spoke to the students via zoom conference, and will meet the students for an in person review during the exhibition opening at the museum.

Alanna Airitam

Questioning generalized stereotypes and the lack of fair and equal representation of people of color in art spaces has led artist Alanna Airitam to research critical historical omissions and how those contrived narratives represent and influence succeeding generations. Her photographic series The Golden Age, Crossroads, White Privilege, and individual works such as Take a Look Inside and How to Make a Country ask the viewer to question who they are and how they choose to be seen.

Airitam’s portraits and vanitas are photographed in studio with minimal lighting rendering a painterly quality to her photographs. The archival pigment prints from The Golden Age series are hand-varnished while those in the Crossroads, Take a Look Inside and How to Make a Country series are archival prints encased in resin and placed in hand-welded frames. All works are produced by the artist in limited editions.

Alanna is a 2020 San Diego Art Prize winner, 2020 Top 50 Critical Mass Finalist, and recipient of the 2020 Michael Reichmann Project Grant Award. Her photographs have been exhibited at Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago, Quint Gallery in San Diego, San Diego Art Institute, Art Miami with Catherine Edelman, Athenaeum Art Center in San Diego, and Candela Gallery in Richmond, Virginia. Born and raised in Queens, New York, Airitam now resides in Tucson, Arizona.

 

Granville Carroll (American b. 1992) is a visual artist and Afrofuturist working with digital technology, poetry, and alternative processes to reshape the world. Carroll’s artwork explores photographic representation and vision to understand the process of existence and interpretation. Simultaneously, he explores and expands ideas around racial blackness to encompass spatial blackness, temporal blackness, and spiritual blackness. Carroll highlights the imaginative qualities of the human mind through world building and storytelling to discover new futures and states of being. At the core of his practice is the investigation into metaphysics and the ontology of self and the universe.

Carroll earned a BFA in photography from Arizona State University in 2018, and earned a MFA in photography and related media from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2020. His work has been shown in the United States and internationally. Most recently his work has appeared at the JKC Gallery in New Jersey, Northlight Gallery and Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona, and in Italy for the Time in Jazz Music Festival. Carroll currently resides in Rochester, NY where he recently completed a residency at the Visual Studies Workshop during Fall 2021. Carroll has been named a 2021 Silver List artist and a 2020 Critical Mass Finalist. His work has been published in a variety of physical and online publications, interviews, and features. Most recently his work was published through What Will You Remember, Brink Literary Journal, Lenscratch, Humble Arts Foundation, and Black Is Magazine.

After working independently, the students meet with esteemed independent curator and scholar Alison Nordstrom, the former curator of the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. She and photographer Sam Sweezy met with students for a one-on-one discussion of their work and a final edit was created for the exhibition at the museum.