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Wickford Art Association Gallery19th Annual Open Juried Photography Show
Awards:Photos to be posted when available.
Pick up displayed
work at show's end on or by June 4, Juror's comments(Juried by Paola Ferrario) When I think of the history of photography I tend to believe that everything truly significant to the medium was done by 1920:
Photography was not born perfect but it became so in the course of one-hundred-and-seventy years. Over this time, photographers with some sense of history and tradition produced surprising new images, thanks to the improvement of photographic equipment and techniques and the ever-changing nature of the world. For this show I tried to encourage everybody who produced a technically solid contemporary photograph. I prized, however, those whose work not only exceeded in the two criteria above but also spoke of our times in a poetic and complex fashion. Some of you might have noticed how Dunkin’ Donuts sports new large decals of food and frozen coffees on its store windows. If we stop and observe real people walking in front of and behind these images, creating a strange sense of scale and reality, this becomes our contemporary landscape. Gene St. Pierre’s "Slater Park" beautifully communicates the sense of disorienting landscape that we experience everyday. In the picture a playful yet childish painted carousel horse frames the existing landscape, a golden frieze touches a hill and the flattering pictorial sky celebrates the moment. Formally complex and visually rewarding, this image articulates an intricate meditation on the contemporary relationship to flora and fauna. Equally competent but slightly less eloquent is Lenny Rumpler’s "Untitled," a photograph that, with perfect graphic sensibility, celebrates a contemporary construction detail. This image evokes the esthetics and sensibilities of Weston, Orozco and Burtynsky but remains original in its own right. Finally, Jillian Barber’s "Floribunda" uses a grid (a technique so agreeable with new digital technology) to create an odd study of torsos and flowers. Hundreds of blossoms catch our eyes, which unavoidably return to the multiple breasts; because of composition choices this is the big elephant in the room. The lovely decorative frame chosen for this piece makes it even harder to tell if the photographs are commentary on the history of the nude or a sensual tease. Yet the ambiguity becomes this picture. Congratulations to everybody! Please continue to take and look at pictures and never edit in camera. Only history can decide which are the very good pictures! -Paola Ferrario Gallery Hours:
Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. and |
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