Griffin Museum of Photography

Envisioning Solitude

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Statement
I am interested in edges and intersections of transformation where one thing moves inexorably to become something else. When is the moment when love fades into anger and resentment; when disillusionment erupts into a violent uprising; when order descends into chaos? And when is the moment when war turns towards peace; unbearable grief shifts towards acceptance; or when pain gives way to relief?

In my professional practice I have witnessed the transformation of the human spirit. I am in awe of resilient clients who pick up the pieces of a broken life and find a regenerated purpose.

In this series: Envisioning Solitude, I seek out close-up views of known objects to reveal patterns of color, texture and form, then capture these images and layer them together to create objects of meditation on that transformative process.  Central to this series is the image of the moon – a solitary celestial body reflecting the light of the sun. In mythology the moon is alternately a symbol of love, desire, change, passion, fertility, insanity, and violence. Often associated with the feminine, the nighttime illumination provided by the moon offers us a different perspective and cause for reflection.

Bio
Vicky’s fascination with photography began at an early age. Her father was an amateur photographer and her mother a painter and pianist. From an early age she was immersed in the arts. She got her first Brownie camera at age 8 and began shooting everything she saw. Watching the magic of an image emerge from the developing tray in her dad’s darkroom; spending afternoons lying under the baby grand piano with waves of sound resonating around and through her; texture, pattern, fluidity, and change – these are the earliest influences and they continue to unfold in her work.

Vicky has lived in Tucson since 1976 when she moved here to pursue a Master’s Degree in Counseling at the University of Arizona. When she retired from a long career in counseling, she turned her attention to photography, ultimately finding her niche in photographing natural subjects. Her work with a close-up lens reflects a unique eye for composition and form. Vicky’s work hangs in galleries, as well as in private and corporate collections from Vermont to Oregon. Her work has been featured at Waxlander Gallery in Santa Fe, PhotoPlace Gallery in Middlebury VT and Afterimage Gallery in Dallas. She has representation through Cynthia Byrnes Contemporary Art in New York. Since 2009, 13 of Vicky’s series have received honorable mentions from the International Photography Awards. In 2015 she was selected for ASMP’s Best of 2015 (American Society of Media Professionals) and a Silver Award from the Tokyo International Foto Awards in 2019.

View Vicky’s Website.

Watching the Ice Melt

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About Watching the Ice Melt

Watching The Ice Melt is a body of work utilizing cameraless abstraction with the cyanotype process to address issues of climate change through themes of glacial ice melt, memory, and loss. This work asks the viewer to consider the urgency of the climate crisis, even when faced with a global pandemic and social unrest.

Over the past several years, as I watched reports of the climate crisis getting worse, pushing past the point of no return, with extreme weather events, floods, wildfires, rising global temperatures, and more … I felt helpless. I started to create abstract images of various forms of ordinary ice melting on sensitized cyanotype paper to process my feelings. I watched the ice melt by the heat of the sun, the resulting water mixing with the chemistry, swirling and pooling, thinking of the massive mountain glaciers rapidly disappearing, sea levels rising, things that have been and will never be again, of a changing planet that will be my children’s future.

The images from this project have been described as haunting, a word that adequately describes the disappearing glaciers and this dying planet. They are cameraless abstractions utilizing elemental sources such as ice and the sun in conjunction with the 19th-century cyanotype photographic process.

This project has been generously supported by the A.R.T. Fellowship from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation.

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Bio
Zachary P. Stephens (b. Brattleboro, VT, 1983) is a visual artist and educator specializing in photographic processes.

He received his MFA in Visual Art from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a certificate in professional photography from the Hallmark Institute of Photography. Before dedicating his life to art and arts education, he was a professional photojournalist with work appearing in; The New York Times, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Burlington Free Press, Vermont Life Magazine, The Brattleboro Reformer, and many more.

His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with the Photographic Exploration Project in Berlin, Germany, Gabba Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Candela Gallery in Richmond, VA, Woody Gaddis Photographic Arts Gallery in Oklahoma, Kayafas Gallery in Boston, MA, Dianich Gallery in Brattleboro, VT, and the Snyder Gallery in Marlboro, VT. Stephens was also recently named a finalist in Photolucida’s 2020 Critical Mass and awarded the A.R.T. Fellowship from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation.

Currently, he is an adjunct professor of photography at Springfield College and Franklin Pierce University. Additionally, he has taught at Keene State College, Landmark College, the Community College of Vermont, The Putney School, and the In-Sight Photography Project. He is an active member of the Society for Photographic Education.

View Zachary’s Website.

Dylan Everett

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Statement
The preface to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a series of aphorisms about art and beauty, including the declaration that “all art is at once surface and symbol.” If all art is at once surface and symbol, I create symbolic surfaces. Through the use of photo-collage, still life, and re-photography, my pictures collapse figure and ground into surface. Drawing from a range of references – my personal life, literature, art, pop culture – and cultural signifiers, these surfaces are loaded with symbols. The viewer is invited to decode these symbols, or at least to try. The symbols in my images often function as homages to the people and things that I love or admire: LGBTQ-identified creative figures, gay icons, and personal relationships. In one instance, this manifests as a room constructed of cyanotypes inspired by John Dugdale; in another, a grisaille room winks to George Platt Lynes’ black-and-white male nudes that remained hidden until after his death; rose wallpaper hints at the titular setting of James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. This series of homages is held together by an aesthetic that strips away any sense of hierarchy among cultural signifiers. In my fabricated spaces, there is no distinction between highbrow and lowbrow, personal or famous, historical or contemporary. The resulting photographs are layered, symbolic works that simultaneously speak to contemporary art and culture, while questioning classic ideas of taste, sensuality, and beauty.

Project Statement
As this project has progressed, my studio constructions have grown more elaborate: I have been creating photographic “rooms.” This began with Blue Room (2019), constructed from re-photographed cyanotypes in homage to John Dugdale. Another photograph, titled Rose Room (2019), was loosely inspired by the haunting descriptions of the titular setting of James Baldwin’s novel Giovanni’s Room. Yet another (Grey Room [2019]) winks to George Platt Lynes’ black-and-white male nudes, which remained largely hidden until after his death. These rooms play with classic tropes of beauty and decor while also layering in various personal and cultural references.

Bio
b. 1994   —   Dylan Everett (b. 1994 in New Jersey) is an artist/photographer working with still life and photo collage. He received an MFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019, and a BA in Visual Art from Brown University in 2016. In 2020 he was a recipient of the West Collection LIFTS Grant and Acquisition Award; he was previously awarded the Digital Silver Imaging Portfolio Prize in 2018, and was named second place for the 2019 Lenscratch Student Prize.

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Education
2019 MFA, Photography, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

2016 BA, Visual Art, Brown University, Providence, RI

Exhibitions
2021 Photography is Dead – Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA

2020 Fear Environmental Mayhem Ahead – The Icebox Project Space, Philadelphia, PA

2019 The Curated Fridge Autumn 2019 Show – The Curated Fridge, Somerville, MA

In Close Range – ClampArt, New York, NY

Graduate Thesis Exhibition – Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, RI

2018 New Photography – Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI

2017 Photography Triennial – Woods Gerry Gallery, Providence, RI

2016 2nd PULP Showcase – FotoFilmic, Bowen Island, BC, Canada

Vanitas – LoosenArt LAB-A, Cagliari, Italy

Performing Decay – The Open Aperture Gallery, Newport, RI

Spring Arts Festival – Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI

36th Annual Juried Student Exhibition – David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, RI

2015 Accretion/Avulsion (solo) – Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI

35th Annual Juried Student Exhibition – David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, RI

2013 Rising Waters 2.0: More Photographs of Sandy – Museum of the City of New York, NY

Grants/Awards
2020 LIFTS Grant and Acquisition Award – West Collection

2019 Lenscratch Student Prize, Second Place

2018 DSI Portfolio Award – Digital Silver Imaging

Graduate Student Project Grant – Rhode Island School of Design

Graduate Fellowship – Rhode Island School of Design

2017 Graduate Fellowship – Rhode Island School of Design

2016 Seventh Annual Manifest Prize Semi-Finalist – Manifest Gallery

Minnie Helen Hicks Award for Excellence in Visual Arts – Brown University

Round 4 Juried Showcase Winner – ArtSlant

Acquisition Award Shortlist – The Annex Collection

Marlene Malik Award – Brown University

Julie Sloane Memorial Fund Award – Brown University

Creative Arts Council Grant – Brown University

2015 Creative Arts Council Grant – Brown University

Publications and Press
2021 Photography is Dead, Candela Gallery

“LIFTS Recipient: Dylan Everett,” West Collection

“Portfolio Feature: Dylan Everett,” Float Magazine

“Dylan Everett,” Yolanda Josef  Projects

2019 “2019 Lenscratch Student Prize: Second Place,” Lenscratch

2018 Manifest Exhibition Annual, Season 13 – Manifest Gallery, v.1 – Rhode Island School of Design

View Dylan Everett’s Website

Splash

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Splash implies a summer frolic at the beach but what else can you think of?  A fountain, a swath of color, a sound, a mermaid? Thirty-nine photographers weigh in on their interpretation of the topic.

Splash comes out of what we see as a universal need to rejuvenate after over a year of hardship. We wanted to celebrate the cycles of seasons as Summer follows Spring. We wanted to foster emotional healing while using the photograph as a vehicle to release anguish caused by great losses and by over a year of isolation. What better way to unleash creative juices for the artists and the viewer. There is always the connection of seeing artwork in context to past experience. We wanted joyous memories to flood the imagination.

We asked the photographers to think about the meaning of “Splash.” We  received a variety of answers many of which involve water. Hopefully we engage the audience to imagine their past and future “Splash” moments and hope that more than a “Belly Flop” comes to mind.

The photographers of Splash are: Federica Armstrong, Jan Arrigo, Gary Beeber, Meg Birnbaum, Norm Borden, Sally Bousquet, Lora Brody, Joy Bush, Richard Alan Cohen, L. Aviva Diamond, Alex Djordjevic, Steven Edson, Miren Etcheverry, Kev Filmore, Jennifer Greenburg, Maureen Halderman, Carol Isaak, Leslie Jean-Bart, Roger Carl Johanson, Susan Lapides, Susan Lirakis, Joyce P. Lopez, Bruce Magnuson, Landry Major, Carol Mathieson, Meryl Meisler, Olga Merrill, Judith Montminy, Rita Nannini, Richard O’Neill, Jaye Phillips, Ann Rosen, Susan Rosenberg Jones, Russ Rowland, Sarah Schorr, Vicky Stromee, Neelakantan Sunder, Kiyomi Yatsuhashi and Dianne Yudelson.

 

What Will You Remember Best Photo Picks June 21

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Virtual Exhibition to Accompany the 27th Juried Exhibition

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The photographers that will be exhibited on a computer in the gallery during the 27th Juried Exhibition and exhibited in the Critic’s Pick Gallery on-line and released to Instagram are:

Hannah Altman, Norman Aragones, K Linnea Backe, Gary Beeber, Sheri Lynn Behr, Debra Bilow, Diana Bloomfield, Edward Boches, Sally Bousquet, Annette LeMay Burke, Valerie Burke, Ken Cashon, Wen-Han Chang, Sally Chapman, Pamela Chipman, Gina Cholick, Gigi Chung, Jacob Clayton, Marcy Cohen, David Comora, Cathy Cone, Anne Connor, Matthew Conti, Donna Dangott, Susan DeLeo, L. Aviva Diamond, Laura Dodson, Barbara Dombach, Ellen Feldman, Diane Fenster, Kev Filmore, Fran Forman, Nicholas Gaffney, Beth Galton, Katie Golobic, Bill Gore, Paul Greenberg, Michal Greenboim, Marsha Guggenheim, Juliet Haas, Law Hamilton, William Hamlin, Dave Hanson, Nadia Haq, Pamela Heemskerk, Diane Hemingway, Keiko Hiromi, Emma Hopson, Evy Huppert, Jeannie Hutchins, Deborah Kaplan, Deborah Kidder, Sandra Klein, Karen Klinedinst, Eric Kunsman, Molly Lamb, Susan Lapides, Stephen Levin, Elizabeth Libert, Susan Lirakis, Rhonda Lashley Lopez, Joyce Lopez, Lawrence Manning, Shinya Masuda, Mahala Mazerov, Coco McCabe, Julie McCarthy, Jennifer McClure, Eric McCollum, Lisa McCord, Vicki McKenna, C.E. Morse, Nancy Nichols, Scott Offen, Denise Orlin, Rolando Palacio, Christos Palios, Marcy Palmer, Zoe Perry-Wood, Jaye Phillips, Wendy Ploger, Mary Quin, Suzanne Révy, Susan Rosenberg Jones, Claudia Ruiz Gustafson, Jacque Rupp, Elizabeth Ryan, Gail Samuelson, Daryl-Ann Saunders, Elliot Schildkrout, Charlotte Schmid-Maybach, Sarah Schorr, Paula Shur, John Slepian, Susan Swirsley, Jane Szabo, Martha Wakefield, Melanie Walker, Dawn Watson, Caren Winnall, Jane Yudelman, Sam Zalutsky and Hao Zhang.

On Tenterhooks

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Statement
On Tenterhooks is a single-edition, handmade accordion book.

To be on tenterhooks is to wait nervously for something to happen. Anxiety is a fracturing process that takes our world’s structure and splits it, tearing what we understand into cross sections of confusion and panic. The book fractures the images into a distorted jumble, forcing you to contort your body into a new position to clearly see the images. The audience must meet the book halfway to view it correctly, a connection that was purposely made to symbolize how difficult it can be to understand anxiety from the outside.

About
Jordan Funk is a Photographic Artist currently based in Rochester, NY. She received her MFA in Photography & Related Media from the Rochester Institute of Technology and her BFA in Photography and Fine Art from Texas Woman’s University. Her work explores our complex understanding of identity and focuses on how photography connects us to images.

View Jordan Funk’s website.

Jenga

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Statement
The Covid lockdown permitted me great deal of time in my garden and for long walks in the parks and Aqueduct trail near my home. I produced this series after observing the alarming decrease of the insect and small mammal population due to habitat changes. These observations made me want to celebrate nature and create Memento Mori to honor these endangered species.

During the Victorian era, photographs called Memento Mori were created to commemorate deceased loved ones. These photos, both beautiful and unsettling, exquisitely posed the dead in their finest clothes and surrounded by their favorite objects. The images were extremely popular in the mid 1800’s and were often the one opportunity to have a permanent likeness of a beloved family member.

For my series, Jenga, I’ve layered botanical and other materials, media and dyes on multiple sheets of glass that are separated by Jenga blocks. With each photo, created in camera, I feel that I too am creating Memento Mori to honor and memorialize insects and other small animals whose alarming decline due to habitat changes, pesticides, deforestation and global warming makes their recognition all the more poignant.  The series is named for the game of stacked blocks that ultimately collapse as supporting blocks are removed, one by one. It’s not hard to imagine our world crashing down like the Jenga blocks as the supports necessary to sustain us are removed.

All the insects or animals used in creating the photographs were either found in my neighborhood or purchased from a company that claims the specimens for sale were farm-raised and died of natural causes. – SR

Bio
Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, Richman now lives in Hastings on Hudson, a suburb of NYC. Her love affair with photography began her freshman year of college when she was forced to pick between art or math as a course elective. To the dismay of her parents who were hoping she would become a lawyer, she majored in Fine Arts with a focus on photography and upon graduation she began a successful career as a commercial photographer in Manhattan.

After years of photographing other people’s visions, she has evolved into an artist and educator. Prior to Covid, she was a teacher at The International Center for Photographer in NYC and is currently a member of the Upstream Gallery in NY.

Richman’s interests lay in observing what others overlook. Her photographs explore the link between existence, decay and loss, and they blur the difference between painting and photography. For the past decade, she has primarily focused on photographing images that explore the damage to our environment by creating images that capture and preserve the fleeting nature of our world. Through art she hopes to inspire people to look beneath the surface and to see something never seen before and to thereby inspire change.

Recent awards and recognitions include Finalist, 2021 Larry Salley Photography Award, ArtsWestchester; Best Of Show, 2020 Non Member National Juried Exhibition, Salmagundi Club; 2020 International Juried Exhibition Soho Photo Gallery. She was a Featured artist in 2021 in F Stop Magazine and in 2020 in Create Magazine. The New York Times and The Washington Post highlighted her work in an article in 2019 titled Elements Provide Inspiration at Architectural Digest Show.

Susan Richman CV
b. 1959, Washington Pennsylvania
Lives in Hastings on Hudson, NY

EDUCATION
George Washington University, Washington D.C. Bachelor of Art 1981
Art Center College of Design Pasadena Cal. Bachelor of Fine Arts 1983

EMPLOYMENT
Educator at International Center of Photography, NYC, NY 2011- present

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 Jenga, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2018 Re>Formations, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2017 Ephemeral, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2017 Transient, Martucci Gallery, Irvington, NY

2017 Transient, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2014 Under Glass, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

AWARDS
Larry Salley Photography Award; Finalist, ArtsWestchester. Award is for Hudson Valley based photographers with a significant body of work demonstrating outstanding artistic merit.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 
2021 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2021 National Juried Photography Exhibition; Soho Photography Gallery NY, NY

2020 Summer Exhibition, Susan Richman and David Barnett, The Lodge At Woodloch Gallery, Hawley, PA

2020 National Juried Photography On line Exhibition; Soho Photography Gallery NY, NY

2020 From A Seed…The World Of Botanicals 2020; Second Place,New York Center For Photographic Art, NY, NY

2020 Altered States, Pleiades Gallery NY, NY

2020 Female In Focus, The Center For Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO.

2020 Water, International Juried Show; Honorable Mention, New York Center For Photographic Art, NY, NY

2019 Abstracted Reality, Atlantic Gallery, NY, NY

2019 Taking Pictures 2019, Black Box Gallery, Portland, Ore

2019 Glimpses of Our World Juried Exhibition, Salmagundi Club, NY, NY

2018 Abstract National Juried Photo Exhibition, SE Center, Greenville, SC

2018 Red, White and Blue, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2018 Click Juried Photography Exhibition, Blue Door

2018 National Juried Photography Exhibition, Soho Photography Gallery, NY, NY

2017 Art In Our Time, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2017 Ephemeral, Umbrella Arts Gallery, NY, NY

2017 Ephemeral, Affordable Art Fair, NY, NY

2016 River Art Exhibition, Dobbs Ferry, NY

2016 Conversation, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

2015 ICP Masters Class, ICP Education Gallery, NY, NY

2015 Hidden Yonkers, Blue Door Gallery, Yonkers, NY

2015 Show and Tell Seven, Blue Door Gallery, Yonkers, NY

2015 Influences, Upstream Gallery, Hastings on Hudson, NY

ART FAIRS
2019 Architectural Design Digest Show, Pier 94, NY, NY

2019 Art on Paper Art Fair, Pier 36, NY, NY

2018 Affordable Art Fair, Metropolitan Pavilion, NY, NY

PRESS
Constructed Images: Group Online Exhibition F Stop A Photography Magazine, February and March Issue

Jackie Lupo: Uncertainty Inspires New Artistic Direction, The Rivertowns Enterprise, vol 45 No#27 October 2, 2020

Kim Cook: Elements Provide Inspiration at Architectural Digest Show, AP, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox Business News, APNews.com, Foxbusinessnews.com, NWITimes.com, https://www.journalnow.com, March 2019 – Kim Cook March 30, 2019

Art Of Collage Art Of Collage, Nancy Nikkal, vol 1 No#1 October 2018

Jackie Lupo: Photographer Captures Grandeur of Derelict Buildings, The Rivertowns Enterprise, vol 40 No#33 November 2015

The Gallery Scene: Susan Richman, Blogfinger.net, Posted By Paul Goldfinger, October, 2017 On Line

Hillari Graff: Richman’s Photos Yield “Unnatural Beauty” The Rivertowns Enterprise, vol 39 No#2 April 2014

 

View Susan Richman’s website.

 

 

Hard Breath Volume 2

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Project Statement
At the height of the AIDS epidemic experimental drug treatments lead to the invention of modern antiretroviral medications that keep the virus suppressed, but these drugs would have never become available had there not been individuals willing to receive them on an experimental basis. This body of work titled Hard Breath Volume 2 is the second iteration in a series of works exploring the body as artifact and its preservation. In January of 2019 I enrolled as a volunteer in a year-long experimental drug study aimed at treating and suppressing the HIV virus in a way not yet attempted by medical researchers using broadly neutralizing antibodies. During the study I received multiple day-long infusions of two new experimental HIV drugs over several months. To create a record of this process I gave a Polaroid camera to nurses and visitors and asked them to take pictures of me since I was not capable of making a portrait of myself on my own. When I was capable of making photographs on my own during the process I captured my surroundings – hallways, clocks, vials of blood, and the people who helped and supported me. The original polaroid photographs are kept in a red research binder along with thorough original documentation including blood work indicating the detectability of HIV in my body.

Participating in this study and the construction of this photographic record is about making a contribution to the future of HIV treatment – to make it easier for others and perhaps unnecessary one day. This work took on a greater urgency for me in the current wake of the COVID-19 pandemic where the search for a vaccination is at the forefront of medical research. The importance of volunteers willing to put their bodies and livelihoods on the line for the benefit of their fellow humans cannot be ignored. I believe I wouldn’t be alive if there weren’t similarly minded people to develop and test the antiretroviral drugs we have today that keep me alive, and I wish there was more of a record of those who give the gift of their bodies and their stories so that others may hold onto theirs. These photographs are, for me, a small push forward in that direction.

Bio
Logan Bellew is a photographer and installation-focused artist based between Brooklyn, New York and Nicosia, Cyprus. The practice of conserving artifacts, stories, and histories form the conceptual core of his work and uses investigative ideologies and autobiographical experiences to develop the deep personal narrative that concerns his work to this day. He is also an active volunteer with the AIDS Solidarity Movement of Cyprus where he was a representative for AIDS Action Europe and helps facilitate island-wide HIV education, public speaking, testing, and outreach campaigns. Logan is currently working to document the experience of volunteering in medical research before and in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Logan earned an MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico and currently teaches at the State University of New York in New Paltz and Arizona State University. His photographs, videos, and installations are exhibited and published internationally including the International Association of Photography and Theory in Cyprus, Primal Sight – a contemporary survey of black and white photography – and the Museum of Modern Art’s artist book collection among others. He is one of the first international recipients of a residency with the Visual Artist’s Association of Cyprus.

Logan Bellew is a recent finalist for the John Chervinsky Scholarship 2020.

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Alayna N. Pernell: Our Mothers’ Gardens

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Statement
Throughout history, there has been a unique curiosity to capture and study the Black body, especially those of Black women. Our bodies have continued to be seen as objects to capitalize off of and often times hardly anything beyond that. With these ideas in mind, my practice is currently revolving around two questions. What can visual art tell us about the depiction of Black women throughout history? How have those negative depictions of Black women resulted in our lack of mental and physical care?

I have spent months researching and uncovering suppressed images of Black women held in photographic collections at the Art Institute of Chicago. The images I have found and researched thus far depict the exploitation and violence towards Black women. In my practice, I have excavated, re-photographed, re-captioned, and re-contextualized the original works. By engaging with these images with the intervention of my hands and my body, I attempt to rescue and protect Black women’s bodies and their humanity, and also unearth their stories so that they can be seen and heard. With my ongoing body of work entitled Our Mothers’ Gardens, I beg for more than the visibility of Black women in institutional collections and hopeful reparations. I also desire for the issue around institutions holding and silencing collections of visible and (in)visible violent visual depictions of Black women to be further highlighted.

Bio
Alayna N. Pernell (b. 1996) was born and raised in rural Alabama, USA. In May 2019, she graduated from The University of Alabama where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a concentration in Photography and a minor in African American Studies. She received her MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2021. Pernell’s practice considers the gravity of the mental wellbeing of Black people in relation to the physical and metaphorical spaces they inhabit. Pernell has had her work published in the 2020-2021 School of the Art Institute of Chicago MFA Catalogue; 2020-2021 School of the Art Institute Department Photography Department Catalogue; and the 1stand 2nd editions of Todo, a graduate student zine. Her work has also been exhibited in various cities across the United States. Pernell was also recently named the 2020-2021 recipient of the James Weinstein Memorial Award.

Alayna N. Pernell is a recent finalist for the John Chervinsky Scholarship 2020.

View Alayna N Pernell’s Website

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Mark Feeney, photo critic of The Boston Globe reviews our current exhibitions at the Griffin.

 

Now is Always

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About Now is Always – 

Now is Always was begun during the Great Depression when my father, Joseph Harold Trachtman (1914-1971), shot a few rolls of film near his father’s drugstore in Center City, Philadelphia. Nearly 90 years later, my sister found the negatives and gave them to me. Working from my father’s original negatives, I’ve combined the people from his neighborhood with my own images, many of which were shot from windows and moving vehicles. NOW IS ALWAYS is our collaboration across time.

My father lived in Philly his entire life, and his images of friends and neighbors are firmly rooted in one place and time: the corner of 19th and Girard during the Depression. My images, on the other hand, are much less rooted. This is probably because I was pretty much on my own after my parents died– my father when I was five and my mother when I was 15. My most vivid memory of my father is his leg, because that’s about all I was tall enough to see of him. His most vivid memory of me? I will never know. And yet in this work we manage to speak.

After my parents died, I was rarely in one place for very long. Often the view out a car or train window felt more like home than wherever I was living. Over time, I’ve developed a kinship with blurred bridges and highways, trestles and roofs, the husks of industrial towns racing by at two or three in the morning. In this work, my father’s life becomes part of these landscapes– our shared and evanescent homes.

There is obviously a personal aspect to Now is Always, but I want the work to be more expansive than a dialogue between the father I didn’t know and the daughter he knew only as a child. In Now is Always, I want to create a feeling of collapsed-yet-expanded time. Yes, I want to see what my father saw, and yes, I want him to see what I see. But I also want the viewer to look at the past, and I want the past to look right back; I want the viewer and the subject to each feel the gaze of the other. And by combining images taken almost a century apart, I also want to seamlessly integrate layers of technology and image-making history: his 1930’s point-and-shoot, my iPhone, his silver-gelatin negatives, my Photoshop files, our shared sunlight and water, the traditions of ink, elbow grease, and an intaglio press.

Now is Always is supported by a grant from the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional support from the Tusen Takk Foundation.

See the work and hear Vaune in her own words talk about Now is Always.

About Vaune Trachtman – 


Vaune Trachtman is a photographer and printmaker whose work honors the methods and tones of historic processes, but without the toxic chemicals. Formerly a master printer of silver gelatin prints and asphaltum-based photogravures, she began to feel that her immune-system was being compromised by those processes. She now makes gravures with little more than light and water. Her images explore the evanescence of dreams and memory— a “fleeting, wondrous, sacred habitation” (Collier Brown, Od Review).

Vaune was born in Philadelphia and attended the Tyler School of Art and Marlboro College. She received her M.A. from New York University and The International Center for Photography. She worked in the imaging department of TIME Inc. for many years. She lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.

CV

View Vaune Trachtman’s Website

Mark Feeney, photo critic of The Boston Globe reviews our current exhibitions at the Griffin.

What Will You Remember

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