August 22, 2008  (Winchester, MA)  To create a picture, Pelle Cass pages  through magazines, tears out images that conform to a preconceived idea, cuts and positions the snippets on cardboard, sticks colored map pins into the assemblage, and then he photographs the end product of all his efforts.

An exhibit of his work, Pins, is featured in The Atelier Gallery at the Griffin Museum September 11 through November 2.

“Among other things, there is a story about color itself here; how the color of the pins match up to the color in the pieces of paper I stick them into,’’ says Cass. “And how the pins also match up to the names of colors as they appear in several of these pictures. Other pictures are monochrome; all blue magazine snippets with only blue pins, for example. In other pictures, I deliberately mismatch the pins to the areas of color I place them in. Sometimes, I think of the pins as pixels, and by placing them here and there in a pattern, it is as if I am balancing the color of my composition.’’

Cass says the pins “can suggest aerial views and maps, color coding, the human figure, vegetation, taxonomy and collecting, and naturally, pain.’’ He adds that the magazine imagery often evokes “a foreign world of luxury and ease that seems deeply strange to me.’’

“Pelle Cass’ creative journey is as interesting to me as his final photographs,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “Each photograph seems to grow out of the nourishment supplied by Cass’ experience of the creative process.”

Cass, of Brookline, MA, studied photography at the University of New Mexico; the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Minneapolis College of Art. He holds a B.A. in art history from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

After a hiatus of more than a decade, he resumed photographing in 2002. He is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston and has participated in many group and solo shows. His work is held in the collections of many museums, as well as in private collections. It can be seen at www.pellecass.com.

Cass has been a Polaroid Collection Fellow. He also has been nominated for the ICA, Boston, Artist’s Prize and the Santa Fe Center for Photography Artist’s Prize.