Photography

Lisa Ryan | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on August 15, 2023

Lisa Ryan’s Becoming Light is up at WinCam in Winchester. Her works 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.

Tell us a little about your background.

My family was always interested in the arts. One grandfather collected art for what is now the Glypotek Museum in Copenhagen. Another was the painter John Graham. I grew up surrounded by wonderful art and took drawing and painting lessons from an early age.

When I got to Pratt Institute of Art in NYC, I started out as a painting major but became fascinated by photography. I wanted to work directly with light and in color.

Now, many years later, as a night photographer and light painter, I have come full circle: I paint and draw with light, captured by the camera.

Do you have an end goal in mind when you begin creating a photo?

I work in series of images. The process of light painting and drawing is repetition and trial and error. One image leads to the next as I refine or develop the idea. Sometimes projects lie dormant, then come to life again. Projects I have worked on include Light Gardens (light drawings), and Fire People (double exposures of fire and people). The Becoming Light (light drawings of the human figure) series began in 2016, and I have worked on it on and off since then.

What feeling do you wish to convey with each piece?

In Becoming Light I would like the viewers to imagine themselves dancing, transforming into light/energy. I would like them to feel a sense of freedom: Imagination is the only limit.

What inspires you to keep making?

Making photographs is both sustaining and fun for me. It’s an important part of how I live in the world. I can’t imagine life without it.

ABOUT LISA RYAN

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.

Rolls and Tubes | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on July 7, 2023

With the exhibition of Rolls and Tubes coming to a close on July 9th, the four artists were asked to delve into their process and thoughts behind the work. Be sure to stop by the museum to see each artists reinterpretation of a known photograph in the arc of contemporary, and the history of photography, utilizing toilet paper as an element of the image.

Tell us a little about how your work with photography began?

“My father was an incessant amateur photographer and filmmaker. He was armed with his Bolex movie camera or some manner of camera his whole life—though an architect by trade. SO it is no surprise that Santa brought me a Kodak Instamatic in 1971. My formal training, however, began in high school.” – Colleen Mullins

“My introduction to photography was when I was a child. Home movies and slideshows –then learning to process and print in elementary school when I was 12. From that time on, photography was simply a part of me, it never occurred to me to stop, in fact it felt very wrong to stop. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I thought of myself as ‘a photographer’ and ‘an artist.'” – Jenny Sampson

“I took my first photography class in high school but it wasn’t until college when I had conversation with a career counselor who asked me “How would you like to spend your day if you could do whatever you want” and without hesitation I said “I’d walk around taking photos of people out in the world.” Neither the career counselor nor I knew what that meant in terms of an actual job, but it was that single conversation that ultimately led me to majoring in Art/Photography at UC Berkeley and becoming a photographer. While I have done all kinds of photography for work since then, walking around out in the world taking photos of people is still my favorite way to spend a day and is now my primary practice.” – Christy McDonald

“It’s weirdly straightforward. I took photography classes at the Art Institute of Boston while in high school and that was it. I had found something that allowed me to understand the world around me, and much later, myself. But I suppose my real formative experience was at MassArt. That place, and more importantly the people within it, were the catalysts for much of the way that I still think about and approach image making. Now, as a professor of photography, I try to emulate the environment I experienced there in my own classroom.” – Nicole White

What do you want this work to convey to the public? Has the message changed between showing on instagram vs showing in a museum?

“At first, this project was for us; a means to find some humor, reconsider the photographic canon, and question societal priorities during the pandemic. As we progressed, there was a realization that other people were getting something out of watching the project unfold via Instagram. The public response showed us that it provided a small escape from the pandemic through the daily task of looking at our work and investigating the source. Along with that, maybe they got a little chuckle from our reinterpretation.

Once the work was made physical (i.e. a book), the possibility of how it could function changed. The book allowed us to consider a level of engagement and interaction with the work that was not possible with Instagram. Showing the work on a wall is an entirely different experience, one which enables us to put different pieces in conversation with one another each time it is installed.” – Nicole White (answering for the group)

Were there any rules you began to follow but lost over time?

“We stayed pretty true to our initial prompt. As we kept making them, we allotted ourselves more time because our processes became more elaborate. Outside of that, the initial prompt gave us enough flexibility that we felt like we could make a piece that was a very close duplicate to the original or something that was more of a nod to the original.” – Nicole White (answering for the group)

“Well, there really weren’t any rules of the group except that we had to use toilet paper in some way to recreate a photograph. I had my own personal rules, which I allowed myself to break if necessary. My overall rule was that I can do whatever I want because there are no rules; within that rule, I wanted to make things with my hands, and I accomplished this with few exceptions –because I could do whatever I wanted.” – Jenny Sampson

Has there been a piece of contemporary art that has particularly engaged or moved you?

“It changes. I saw a remarkable work by Edward and Nancy Keinholz at Frieze this year. My Country ’Tis of Thee, 1991.

A sculpture of four unrepentant businessmen, pantsless. Life size. All had their right legs in the same barrel, their right hands over their hearts, and their left hands reaching back to stoke the penis of the man behind. Red white and blue bare lightbulbs drained out from the barrel like water. And it felt so present. So now. So raw. So hopeless, in that it was made 30+ years ago.” – Colleen Mullins

“A local Bay Area photographer, J.M. Golding, has been making these gorgeous lumen print diptychs –of course work born out of an accident– that I cannot stop thinking about. They are dreamy, haunting, bewildering and engaging.” – Jenny Sampson

“When I was in college my photography class went to a lecture given by Sebastiao Salgado where he presented his series on Brazilian mine workers. I was blown away by the deep dark richness of his images and by his focus on the human condition, at the time, I had never seen anything like it. This was when I realized documentary photography could be fine art. I have also been heavily influenced by the work of Bruce Davidson, Robert Frank and Josef Koudelka, three of my favorite photographers.” – Christy McDonald

“Sure. I look at work all the time to better inform my practice and my teaching. Last month, I was in Paris and saw the Lynne Cohen and Marina Gadonneix exhibition at the Centre Pompidou and it has stuck with me. While both artists’ work read as somewhat detached as first, there is a beauty and depth to the pieces that really surprised me. I was taken by the entire exhibition. I’m still thinking about it. It also made me want to dust off the 4×5 camera…” – Nicole White

Where do you expect to take your art next?

“I am working on a small edition artist book about love letters my mother exchanged with the scientist who later decoded RNA and was the first to use the term mRNA. The work uses certain characteristics of RNA, and the search for its alphabet as the formation of the physical object. I am interested in storytelling, and as a bookbinder—I naturally first gravitate to the book in my work.” – Colleen Mullins

“I have several projects in the works –a few tintype studies that have grown out of (literally and figuratively) my time spent at home during the pandemic including pasiflora mutliples (multiple exposure tintypes) and my weeds. In addition, I am working on an upcoming exhibition of my Skater Girls and Skaters tintype portrait series. And also there’s the collage. Never a dull moment.” – Jenny Sampson

“I’m off to Palestine in the Fall to take more photos for a project I started there in 2016.” – Christy McDonald

“I have no idea. I’m juggling several projects at the moment, but I couldn’t tell you anything about expectations other than those that I put onto myself as an art maker.” – Nicole White

ABOUT THE ROLLS AND TUBES COLLECTIVE

Colleen Mullins is a photographer and book artist. She has garnered numerous grants and fellowships, including two McKnight Fellowships, four Minnesota State Arts Board Grants, and in 2020, she was a nominee for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award for her project “Expositions are the timekeepers of progress”. Additionally, she has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, the Penland School of Crafts Winter Residency, and In Cahoots Residency. Mullins’ work is in the collections of the US Embassy in Moscow, Ogden Museum of Southern Art and Southeast Museum of Photography, among others. Her publications include Photo District News (PDN), The Oxford American Eyes on the South, The New York Times Lens Blog, and numerous textbooks. She has authored articles for Afterimage and PDNedu. Recent exhibitions include Griffin Museum of Photographic Art, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and Tilt Institute for the Contemporary Image with the Rolls & Tubes Collective.

Jenny Sampson was born and raised in San Francisco and currently resides in Berkeley, California. She earned a B.A. in Psychobiology in 1991 at Pitzer College and has since dedicated her time to her photographic endeavors: wet plate collodion, traditional black and white photography and commissioned portraits. Sampson is a member of The Rolls and Tubes Collective. Her first monograph, Skaters, was published in October 2017 by Daylight Books and Jenny’s Skater Girls in September 2020.

Nicole White is a Bay Area artist and curator. White uses historical and contemporary photographic processes to examine the medium’s varied functionality while looking at the American cultural landscape. She holds a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art (2002), a MA in Art History from the University of Connecticut (2010) and a MFA in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2012). She is a Professor of Art (Photography) at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, CA. In 2021, she published a book, Rolls & Tubes: A History of Photography, in collaboration with Christy McDonald, Colleen Mullins, and Jenny Sampson.

Christy McDonald uses photography as a way of engaging with the world and exploring the varied cultural and social conditions she encounters. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Christy holds a B.A. in Art (photography) from UC Berkeley, is a member of the Rolls and Tubes Photographic Collective, and has ongoing personal projects in parts of the Middle East and the California Central Valley.

Fern Nesson | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on June 23, 2023

Fern Nesson’s E=mc² is up at the Griffin Museum until July 9th, 2023. Here is your chance to learn more about her work if you missed the Artist Talk!

Tell us a little about your background.

I am a fine art photographer who came to it a bit late in life. I studied religion in college and law after I graduated. After Harvard Law School, I practiced criminal and constitutional law for 10 years. Subsequently, I got a masters degree in American History and taught history and mathematics for the next 25 years. As must be obvious, I believe in changing things up and, in 2018, I completed my MFA in Photography at the Maine Media College.

Although my career path has been varied, I see it not as a rejection of what came before but as a synthesis of my interests and passions accompanied by the pursuit of the craft and technique necessary to realize them. I try always to remember what I’ve learned before as i acquire new ideas and skills.

What compelled you to combine science and art?

Photography impels me to continually broaden my knowledge and skills as well as my range of experience and perception. I begin each of my projects by choosing a theoretical subject that fascinates me. I do love physics but I also love math, philosophy, translation, poetry — all subjects that employ abstraction as a means of seeking truth.

When I choose a subject, I read as much as I can about it and then write about the ideas that inspire me. Then I go out and shoot. I do not to illustrate these ideas but instead to respond to them aesthetically. Invariably, these other disciplines provide parallels which illuminate the issues I face in creating non-objective, abstract photographs.

Can you describe how you see color and motion, and how that impacts your work?

I don’t look specifically for color or motion. I look for energy. I want to my images to embody the moment when mass becomes energy. Sometimes, color aids in conveying energy, sometimes motion, but neither is the necessary. What is critical is form:

I believe that an energy-filled photograph requires

1) active lines and interesting angles

2) contrast of light and dark

3) clarity of focus

4) attention to scale:

There is immensity in the miniscule as well as in

the cosmos. The immensity within us

is equal to the immensity without.

5) room to breathe:

Empty space in an image is as important

as the forms themselves.

6) rhythm:

Rhythm gives life to an image.

The universe is not a still life.

7) spare elegance:

Less is more. Too much going on

in an image destroys harmony,

creates confusion, muddies the message.

Form is key to making a successful abstract image. But the deeper question is why I seek to create energy in each of my images. I can best explain this way:

Many, if not most, photographers make images of “decisive moments,” records of the past, memento mori. Like Roland Barthes that believe that ” a photograph is a witness, but a witness of what is no more — a record of what has been. Every image is an image of death.”

I challenge Barthes by aiming to create images that are alive. An image that embodies energy and engages the viewer in a mutual experience of it is not merely a record of a past moment. It creates new energy. Like Cezanne’s paintings, it breathes.

I use my camera to create life and to defy death. Everything in my images is real, never constructed. Even absent living subjects, they possess the energy that was present at the moment of capture and that energy remains there now. A photographe that embodies energy, like a moment of transcendence, reminds us that we are infinite — a part of the universe, connected to and melded into everything else. If only for fleeting seconds, we perceive that we will never die; we will merely change in form. Nothing is ever lost. Those we loved exist forever all around us in a different form. And we will too.

I aspire to create images that breathe and pulse. I (and they) follow the gentle, exhilarating command of that wisest of verses in the Tao Te Ching: “be living, not dying.”

Has there been a piece of contemporary art that has particularly engaged or moved you?

I am captivated by Malevich, Lissitsky and Moholy-Nagy, artists who incorporate the energy of “space/time” (the fourth dimension) into their work.

Where do you expect to take your art next?

One of my completed projects, “Tilt!,” will open at the Beacon Gallery in Boston on September 1. “Tilt!” explores the relationship of point of view in architecture and in abstract photography. It consists of 40 still photographs, 2 videos and a book of essays.

I’ve also just finished a project entitled “The Music of the Spheres” on the mathematics of harmonics amd its relationship to abstract photography. It includes 24 still photographs, 1 video, and an essay on Pythagorus’s Theory of Harmonics.

This summer, I’m beginning a new project on William Butler Yeats. Yeats is not only a superb poet who uses abstraction and metaphor skillfully but also a philosopher. He has a great deal to teach me about the challenge of maintaining the creative impulse and joy as one faces aging and the end of life. I’ve just begun to read, write and shoot and I’m excited to turn to Yeats every day.

ABOUT FERN NESSON

Fern L. Nesson is a fine art photographer who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received her MFA in Photography from Maine Media College (2018), a J.D. from Harvard Law School (1971.) She has had solo exhibitions abroad at the Politecnico University in Torino, Italy, Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France, Ph21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, the University of The West Indies in Jamaica and in the United States at the MIT Museum Lab, The MetaLab at Harvard, the Beacon Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, the Pascal Gallery in Rockport, Maine, and Through This Lens Gallery in Durham, NC.

Nesson’s solo show, Tilt!, will open in September, 2023 at the Beacon Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. Additionally, Nesson’s work has been selected for numerous juried
exhibitions in the U.S., Barcelona, Rome and Budapest. Her photobooks, Signet of Eternity and WORD, won 10th and the 12th Annual Photobooks Awards from the Davis-Orton Gallery.

Brianna Dowd | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on June 10, 2023

We were thrilled to have Brianna Dowd’s series, Mother Pearl, at the Griffin Museum! Read more to hear about the process and background to the beautiful work.

Tell us a little about your background.

I have an artistic background in photography and graphic design. My journey with photography started in the digital sphere, and in my undergraduate years of college I began to work with combining 19th century processes with digital technology (ie. cyanotype, van dyke). More recently, I have moved into, especially with my thesis work, exploring creating works of collage.

What made you want to focus on this topic for your thesis?

I’ve been working in themes of identity, memory, and loss since my undergraduate years at UNC Greensboro, and developed a series about my paternal grandfather while I was there. From then I knew I wanted to have a body of work that revolved around my father’s mother as well, but was very strategic about how to approach it carefully because there was so much I didn’t know about her but still felt a close connection. I spent much time gathering photos, hearing and documenting stories, even visiting where my father grew up to aid me as I worked on what is now “Mother Pearl”. My love and appreciation for family, history, and paying homage to those who came before us was a huge inspiration in me choosing to move forward with this being my thesis work, as well as my personal experience with connecting to those who are no longer with us.

Is there anything in particular that drew you to photography originally?

I would say nothing as far as a subject drew me to photography specifically, but more so the way photography has been and can be used. I grew up with parents who were wedding photographers, and to see them interact with couples and share in so many love stories helped me learn how important photography was with capturing important moments in life. My college journey specifically gave me a deeper love for photography, as I came to see the medium more than a means to record information and events, but one that can be used as a means to tell stories, express feelings, and encourage conversation.

Has there been a piece of contemporary art that has particularly engaged or moved you?

There are so many pieces I could choose from, but I would like to salute a body of work entitled Sugar Coat, by Christina Leslie who is based in Toronto, CA. Her entire series was emotionally and visually moving, and it serves as a means of education and dialogue about the truths around the history of sugar, slavery, and the Caribbean Diaspora. Her finished photographs were produced from sugar and presented to the viewer appropriated pieces of pro-slave literature, sugar ads, etc.

ABOUT BRIANNA DOWD

Brianna Dowd is an NC based artist whose background is in fine art photography and graphic design. She is a 2017 graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro obtaining a Bachelors of Fine Art degree, and is currently pursuing a Masters of Fine Art at the Savannah College of Art & Design.

Brianna is also the founder and CEO of Butterfly Visuals, LLC, a media company providing quality service to creative and goal oriented individuals in the areas of photography, graphic design, website design, promotional design, branding materials, social media content, and more.

Ruben Natal-San Miguel | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on May 5, 2023

The Griffin Museum is excited to bring Ruben Natal-San Miguel to Lafayette City Center to celebrate his magnum opus, Women R Beautiful.

How might you define this work to a young child or to someone unfamiliar with your work? What are its core components?

The Women R Beautiful series was created from the starting point of me being only 4 years old and seen how my grandfather treated my mother . She was nt allowed to look directly at him while speaking to him. That disturbing memory will never leave my mind. The series are pretty self explanatory. It’ s a celebration of women from all walks of life and children are portrayed interacting with their mothers so, it is pretty self explanatory .

When thinking about your work, what drew you to the Griffin Museum?

The idea of this body of work was to travel to different locations and expand it content while at it. I had photographed women from the Massachusetts areas ( East Boston, Revere, Fitchburg, Provincetown , South Boston , Roxbury and Boston ) so wanted to show New England the variety of diversity of women from all walks of life from other areas outside MA. As you know, New England still it is not as diverse as other parts of America.

How has your relationship with your Mother impacted on your personal style and choices in this work?
I had a rare relationship with my mother. I loved her but, was never her favorite. I was just different and most times she did not knew what to do with me and handle me. I obviously loved her but, she never accepted me for who I am today so, was at times contentious. I did listed to her more then any of my siblings and this body of work was created to celebrate her life and her struggles. My mother was part of what I called ‘’ The Gary Winogrand Generation ‘ on high most women were told what to do, were objectified , could not even vote and their place to be was at home in the kitchen and tending to their families. I thought the Gary Winogransd series which were celebrated 52 years ago were limiting when it came to women representation, women were objectified ( the mentality at the time ) and wanted to give women a newer , fresher andplified voice and presence.

Color is a major part of this work and I’m curious as to how, in your eyes, it reflects or amplifies the meaning of this work?
There is color in most marginalized areas of most cities. Bodegas, murals and most areas have a great intensity of color all over in most building surfaces. I do not stage my work! I find my subjects by walking where no one usually goes to , find the subjects and make an environment portrait of it. It is all about the subject being comfortable and not confronted . The result are very intense and direct portraits where get to capture their true essence.

Lastly, What initially drew you to photographing people candidly on the street and out in public?
I am a September 11, 2001 survivor. I was at the North Tower that fateful day working as a financial controller in Wall Street. . After many months of complete human detachment, moved to Harlem and decided to start photographing based on the very rich street culture that witnessed every day on my way home . It helped me a lot to make and establish connections with total strangers . We could tell each other things that we cannot tell even our closest friends. We developed a quick bond based on humanity. I am a self taught photographer . There is no school in the world that can teach you what I do. It comes from something deeper than soul.

ABOUT RUBEN NATAL-SAN MIGUEL

RUBEN NATAL-SAN MIGUEL is an architect, fine art photographer, curator, creative director and critic. His stature in the photo world has earned him awards, features in major media, countless exhibitions and collaborations with photo icons such as Magnum Photographer Susan Meiselas. Gallery shows include: Asya Geisberg, SoHo Photo, Rush Arts, Finch & Ada, Kris Graves Projects, Fuchs Projects, WhiteBox Gallery, Station Independent Projects Gallery, LMAK Gallery, Postmasters Gallery Rome & NYC and others. His work has been featured in numerous institutions: The New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Griffin Museum of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, African American Museum of Philadelphia, The Makeshift Museum in Los Angeles, University of Washington, El Museo del Barrio and Phillips Auction House and Aperture Foundation.

International art fair representation includes: Outsider Art Fair, SCOPE, PULSE, Art Chicago, Zona Maco, Mexico, Lima Photo, Peru and Photo LA. and Filter Photo Festival in Chicago Ill. His photography has been published in a long list of publications, highlights: New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Time OUT, Aperture, Daily News, OUT, American Photo, ARTFORUM, VICE, Musee, ARTnet and The New Yorker, PBS and NPR. In 2016, Ruben’s Marcy’s Playground was selected for both the Billboard Collective and website for Apple. His photographs are in the permanent collections of El Museo Del Barrio in NYC, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY, The Contemporary Collection of the Mint Museum Charlotte, North Carolina, The Bronx Museum for the Arts, School of Visual Arts, NYC, The Fitchburg Museum of Art, Massachusetts, The North Carolina Museum of Art at Raleigh, NC., The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, The Studio Museum of Harlem and The Museum of The City of NY, The Provincetown Art Museum, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Museum Center at Vassar College and The Museum of Fine Arts , Boston, MA.

Astrid Reischwitz | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on April 14, 2023

Astrid Reischwitz is a part of our show, Ties That Bind, on show now at the Griffin until April 16th.

Ties that Bind stitches together three unique visions looking at the idea of family and the rewriting of history, myth and personal narratives. These artists work with images and objects, including various materials, with the addition of stitching on found images, personal family photos. Each artist finds ways to change the script, rewrite what has been lost and gain clarity of vision.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

Although working in the field of natural science, art always played an important role in my life and I see photography as a way to explore life further and pave a path to the future.

Tell a little about your work in the new exhibition, “Ties That Bind.”

Images in this exhibition are from my series Stories from the Kitchen Table and Spin Club Tapestry, they are based on cultural memories and the evolution of village life in Northern Germany. I see my work as visual storytelling where memories and emotions intertwine into new stories. The work is also a reflection on belonging. I have lived for many years abroad and the photographic work is important to create a new home, a new shelter of emotions.

What led to your decision to implement family keepsakes into your work as a means of exploring themes like memory and place?

Keepsakes like old photos and embroidered fabric can tell us more about the past, about the people who touched these memorabilia. Traditional stories have a profound impact on my current photographic work. In my village in Germany, women met regularly in “Spin Clubs” to spin wool, embroider, and stitch fabrics for their homes. My composite images are based on these stories and cultural characteristics and I transform this tradition of storytelling into a visual journey. With my own embroidered elements, I explore the theme of memory further.

What led to your decision to implement family keepsakes into your work as a means of exploring themes like memory and place?

Finally, what is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment?

I love street art/graffiti and became interested in the connection between street art and early rap music after visiting the exhibition “Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Absolutely obsessed with Rapture by Blondie.

ABOUT ASTRID REISCHWITZ

Astrid Reischwitz is a lens-based artist whose work explores storytelling from a personal perspective. Using keepsakes from family life, old photographs, and storytelling strategies, she builds a visual world of memory, identity, place, and home. Her current focus is the exploration of personal and collective memory influenced by her upbringing in Germany.

Reischwitz has exhibited at national and international museums and galleries including Newport Art Museum, Griffin Museum of Photography, Danforth Art Museum, Photographic Resource Center, The Center for Fine Art Photography (CO), Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Center for Photographic Art (CA), FotoNostrum, Dina Mitrani Gallery and Gallery Kayafas.

She has received multiple awards, including the 2020 Griffin Award at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Multimedia Award at the 2020 San Francisco Bay International Photo Awards. Her series “Spin Club Tapestry” was selected as a Juror’s Pick at the 2021 LensCulture Art Photography Awards and is the Series Winner at the 2021 Siena International Photo Awards. She was a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 photographer in 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2016; and is a Mass Cultural Council 2021 Artist Fellowship Finalist in Photography.

Her work was featured in Fraction Magazine, Lenscratch, LensCulture, What Will You Rembember?, Wired Japan, Il Post Italy, P3 Portugal, Aint-Bad Magazine, The Boston Globe, NRC Handelsblad Amsterdam, as well as other media outlets.

Marsha Guggenheim | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on April 7, 2023

Marsha Guggenheim’s series is on show now at the Griffin Museum. Without a Map reimagines this time that’s deeply rooted in my memories. Visiting my childhood home, synagogue and family plot provided an entry into this personal retelling. Working with family photos, creating new images from my past and turning the camera on myself, I found the means to evoke, reinterpret and address unanswered questions born from early imprints that were buried long ago.

Tell us a little about your background

This is a picture I made of me as a young girl and as a woman today. A lot has happened over these years. I didn’t come to photography until late in life after a career in the nonprofit sector where I created programs supporting the underserved community.

How has your approach to photography evolved since beginning the project?

This project is technically a significant departure from my previous work. I started with color but found sepia was a much more effective way to work with my old photos and to create a sense of time with my new ones. I learned techniques for manipulating images with available light and in-camera affects and only used tools like Photoshop for basic cropping and print production.

Tell a little about your exhibition, “Without a Map”, and how it was conceived

For years I have loved making pictures of people and learning their stories. About five years ago, I realized that there was one story I hadn’t addressed and that was my own. To make this series, I looked at old family photos, made self portraits, and created pictures from conversations I had with people who had known my mother. I also visited my childhood home, synagogue and family plot to gain a better understanding of my early childhood.

Has there been a piece of contemporary art that has particularly engaged or moved you?

I’m not sure Robert Frank’s work would still be considered contemporary, but he was my teacher, unbeknownst to him. I love his work and how he makes pictures of daily life, whether it’s a trolly car or a funeral, you get a strong sense of the people involved and their environment.

ABOUT MARSHA GUGGENHEIM

Marsha Guggenheim is a San Francisco based fine art photographer. Her passion is storytelling and using images to re-imagine the past and inspire the present. Marsha spent years photographing and documenting the lives of formerly homeless mothers. This work resulted in the monograph, Facing Forward, highlighting thirty-five women through portraits combined with stories of their life experiences. Over the past five years, Marsha has been working on her series, Without a Map. The project draws on recreating images from memories and ephemera to reconstruct her personal history. Without a Map looks at the life-long impact of loss on a child and how both trauma and joy affect the human soul.

Represented by Corden Potts Gallery, Marsha is a 2021 and 2022 Critical Mass finalist. Her work has been shown in over fifty exhibitions and is included in numerous private collections. Feature articles and interviews range from Black & White Magazine, All About Photo Magazine, Fraction Magazine, F-Stop Photography Magazine and Lenscratch. In 2023, Marsha will be featured in a solo show at The Griffin Museum of Photography and will also participate in a six-artist group exhibition at the Harvey Milk Photography Center in San Francisco.

Carolle Benitah | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on March 31, 2023

Carolle Benitah is our featured artist apart of our show, Ties That Bind, on show now at the Griffin.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

I came from fashion background. And I started to explore the medium of photography in early 2000. (more included in artist statement)

Tell a little about your work in the new exhibition, “Ties That Bind.”

The works exhibited at the Griffin Museum come from family photographic archives. I use mediums such as embroidery, drawing or writing to give another meaning to these photographs. It’s a way to put these photographs back in motion.

What led to your decision to implement handmade accents like embroidery into your work?

“Photos Souvenirs” is a work that I undertook between 2009 and 2014 on my personal archives. Snapshots are related to memory and loss and often attest to family happiness. I created an imaginary album as a crossing of appearances where I deconstruct the myth of the ideal family to let emerge a more nuanced image. And to do this, I use the deceptively decorative function of embroidery to give these images a different meaning they had in family mythology, and to do something liberating. My needle works, which are reminiscent of conflict, drama and pain, summon the dark matter of family history, which is precisely absent from these photographs. This slow and precise work is the metaphor of a meticulous construction of oneself and of passing time.

Embroidery is also the work of women.

It is the metaphor of a meticulous construction of the self.

Finally, What is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment?

I discovered 4 years ago at Sydney Biennale the work of Miriam Cahn. And I just saw her exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. I totally fell in love with her work, bought her books, read everything about her, and her practice. The power of her work overwhelmed me.

Since 4 mouths, I mostly listen to podcasts instead of music. I listen to Lex Fridman podcasts which are smart, intense and very instructive. I discover worlds far from the milieu of photography and open my perspectives on life. I listen philosophy podcasts too.

ABOUT CAROLLE BENITAH

French Moroccan photographer Carolle Bénitah, who worked for ten years as a fashion designer before turning to photography in 2001, explores memory, family and the passage of time. Often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, Bénitah seeks to reinterpret her own history as daughter, wife, and mother.

The work of Carolle Bénitah has been published in magazines such as Leica World, Shots Magazine, Photos Nouvelles, Spot, Center for Photography Houston, Foto Noviny, and Lens Culture, among others. Carolle Bénitah was born in Casablanca (Morocco) and graduated from the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (Paris). Her series Photos-Souvenirs was also selected to exhibit in FotoFest’s 2014 Discoveries of the Meeting Place showcase of past Biennial portfolio reviews. We thank Corinne Tapia and Sous Les Etoiles Gallery for working with the museum to showcase Carolle’s works.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I started taking photographs in the early 2000s after very strong personal challenges. The fragile dimension of life came upon me and photography worked as an existential crutch. Faced with a reality that is difficult to grasp – such as illness in the series “Self-Portrait with the Red Curtain” (2002), or in the series “A bed of roses” (2001-2008), photography has acted as a new body of meaning. From the beginning, I placed my practice in the field of intimacy; the family and the passing of time were the objects of my research. Today, my work leads to more open topics such as filial ties, desire, loss, mourning and the confinement of women and touching the universal.

I cultivate a protean approach to creation by developing installations around the series “Photos souvenirs” and “Fantômes”. I create books in which I embroider memories, paper mats that evoke the obsession, cushions that tell the stories of Tom Little Thumb … and through which I question the identity, the construction of oneself. I use materials that are in the domestic world (placemats, handkerchief with embroidered monogram, tea towel, sheet …) and often embroiders on phrases from popular songs, dreams of young romantic girls to denounce the clichés of sentimentality blue flower.

Through the trivial objects that I create and embroider, I overthrow the hierarchy of the arts. In 2013, “What cannot be said” and “What cannot be seen” are series from my ID photographs. The philosopher Jacques Derrida wrote: “What cannot be said should certainely not remain silence but written”. Here, writing and drawing are a form of resistance to silence. I speak of women’s silence about their desires and the difficulty of accepting their body as a desiring object.

“Jamais je ne t’oublierai” (I will never forget you) (2017) is a series of anonymous photographs that I intervene by masking some elements with gold leaf. It is a negative album of “Photos Souvenirs”. I point out the shortcomings of photography that says “I’ll never forget you” as the heady chorus of a nursery rhyme. I do this work because no one is concerned by these photographs anymore. “Ideal Standard” (2017) questions the ritual of Marriage in my culture of origin and denounces the desire to submit to the norm and to follow a ready-made model in order to reach a socially acceptable happiness or to his social environment.

Art has a cathartic function for me. It is a way of overcoming hardships, going beyond earthquakes and standing up. The artist louise Bourgeois says: “Every day, you have to get rid of your past. If we can not, then we become an artist. There are two ways to get rid of one’s past: either one takes all the traces and one throws in the trash and that does not exist any more. Either we take these traces and we transform them. The very act of transforming these traces modifies my vision of the world.

All images courtesy of Sous Les Etoiles Gallery.

Matt Siber | Griffin State of Mind

Posted on March 18, 2023

Matt Siber‘s Collective Consciousness looks at the way we imbue preconceived notions of what the object holds, and how we re-envision that object in a new context. His work was on view as part of My Favorite Things at Lafayette City Center, downtown Boston.

chairs on a a table with bird — © Matt Siber

What in your background do you believe had the biggest impact on your personal style and choices

I grew up in a scientific family that had a strong appreciation for art. My father and grandfather were both serious amateur photographers and they encouraged me as a kid to learn how to use a camera. Photography was my entry point into the art world and I have them to thank for that.

My first several years as a professional photographer were spent in the commercial field. My experiences with commercial photography gave me an inside look into the persuasive and manipulative methods used by PR firms to sell a brand image. When I entered my MFA program I was inclined to use that freedom of expression to examine and criticize the world I had come from in order to better understand it. My time as a commercial photographer is directly related to my main artistic practice as an examination and criticism of advanced capitalism.

My expansion into 3D media and other forms of visual expression were significantly influenced by my teaching position at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Our Photography Department takes a very broad approach to photographic practice where we tend to de-emphasize the singular photograph as art object in place of a more holistic approach that includes a range of media and presentation methods. This is when my use of sculptural and installation approaches became integral to my work.

If you were to describe your exhibit to someone what might you say?

The Collective Consciousness project was my way of adapting the approaches from my main practice to a subject I hadn’t addressed before. I was given this residency in the Chicago Public School system and was given free rein to make work that was distinctly mine. I am interested in complex systems, how they work, and the physical infrastructure that keeps them functioning. This led me to examine the objects within the elementary school without which the school couldn’t function. I arrange them in unexpected and often precarious ways in order to emphasize their presence and ask the viewer for their consideration. Much of the project was done in an empty school during the pandemic, adding another layer of context for the otherwise “idle” objects.

Could you explain your relationship to space in your photography? Additionally how does form inform your work?

When I create 3D work for exhibition I think of the pieces as having dimension and being viewed from all angles and perspectives. Much of my work ends up as a photograph, even if the subject is essentially sculptural. In these cases the camera’s flattening of space is used to my advantage as a way of fixing a gaze and locking in formal relationships within the space. In Collective Consciousness the objects needed to be returned right away, so a photograph was the only way to present the work to an audience. The assemblages were created for the camera with a single point perspective in mind. The form’s relation to the space is determined by the compression of space and the rectangular framing of a photograph. Figure and ground become fixed.

What originally brought you to the Griffin?

I ended up meeting with Crista at the Filter Photo Festival in Chicago. I was looking for venues outside of Chicago to exhibit the Collective Consciousness project so I looked to the portfolio reviews at Filter to get the prints in front of some curators. I’ve known of The Griffin for a long time as a professional in the field and a former Massachusetts kid.

ABOUT MATT SIBER

Matt Siber is a visual artist who uses photography, digital imaging, sculpture, and installation to examine large societal systems. He is Associate Professor, Adjunct in the Photography Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Collaborations | Caleb Cole & Jesseca Ferguson

Posted on March 13, 2023

Collaborations, our special print program features creative photographic artists partnering to imagine and produce a one of a kind print to support the Griffin Museum of Photography. We started the program last year, bringing artists together, combining their talents and creativity, to create unique prints, with the funds raised from your purchase benefitting the museum, its education, programs and exhibitions.

We are honored to see the next available print in the program from Boston based artists Caleb Cole and Jesseca Ferguson.

man on the moon — Contemplating the Moon, 2023
Caleb Cole and Jesseca Ferguson

Contemplating the Moon, 2023

Caleb Cole and Jesseca Ferguson

Digital collage from found photograph and handmade cyanotype artist book

Archival Pigment Print

7.2×9 inch image on 8.5×11 inch paper

edition of 20 with 2 AP’s $250

Purchase the print here, or contact the museum to reserve your edition.

Caleb Cole is a Midwest-born, Boston-based artist whose work addresses the opportunities and difficulties of queer belonging, as well as aims to be a link in the creation of that tradition, no matter how fragile or ephemeral or impossible its connections. They were an inaugural resident at Surf Point Residency and have received an Artadia Finalist Award, Hearst 8×10 Biennial Award, 3 Magenta Flash Forward Foundation Fellowships, and 2 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 awards, among other distinctions. Caleb exhibits regularly at a variety of national venues and has held solo shows in Boston, New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, among others. Their work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Newport Art Museum, Davis Art Museum, Brown University Art Museum, and Leslie Lohman Museum of Art. Caleb is represented by Gallery Kayafas, Boston.

Jesseca Ferguson works at the intersection of 19th century handmade photographic processes, collage, and artist books. Her work is held in over twenty public collections in the US and abroad. US collections include the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA; Columbia University Libraries, Rare Books and Manuscripts, New York, NY; and New Mexico History Museum, Pinhole Resource Collection, Santa Fe, NM. International collections include Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, France; Museum of the History of Photography, Kraków, Poland; and The Fox Talbot Museum, Lacock Abbey, England. Her artistic and curatorial projects have been supported by Art Matters, Inc., the Trust for Mutual Understanding (twice), and MacDowell, among others. Her images and photo-objects have been published in numerous books, catalogues, and articles on handmade photography in the US and abroad.
Jesseca lives and works in a co-operative live-work artist building located in the Fort Point area of Boston, MA. She holds undergraduate degrees from Harvard University and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She received her MFA from Tufts University (in conjunction with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). An artist who has had a career as an educator, she has taught courses/workshops and been a visiting artist at Boston-area art schools including Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Art Institute of Boston, Lesley University, Clark University, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA@Tufts).

Photography

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