VoxPhotographs Weblog

Glowing Tree (Gold Leaf Mixed Media©Joyce Tenneson. All Rights Reserved

I’m impressed. 13 books published. Cover photos on half a dozen major publications like Time magazine. International acclaim. Four+ decades of hard work. Joyce Tenneson should be more than ready to put her feet up and rest on her laurels. But, for the second time in ten days I’ve viewed a challenging series of new work by an accomplished Maine-based fine art photographer who could easily coast through the next decade or two on what she’s already achieved: Joyce Tenneson, exhibiting 30 new works at Dowling Walsh in Rockland in “Trees and the Alchemy of Light” through July 29, and Judy Ellis Glickman, who is exhibiting “Upon Reflection” at UNE Gallery of Art through September 30 (read my posting here).

Love ‘em or not, if you miss this Tenneson show, you’ve missed history in the making as far as Maine’s fine art photography community is concerned.

Many contemporary fine art photographers are finding that marrying historic processes with high tech ones results in some highly satisfying photographic experiences. Most of the works in “Trees and the Alchemy of Light” are photographs printed on gold leaf which Tenneson applied herself, and about half a dozen are facemounted on plexiglass (described as “gold mixed media”). Both processes are proprietary to Tenneson, the results of expensive and exhausting experimentation with substrates, and every other part of the process, I imagine – the goal being that of weaving her spiritual journey into her creative vision, and the inspiration to continue the tradition over the ages of using gold to enhance one’s path to the divine.

Bird’s Nest Tree (Gold Leaf Mixed Media)©Joyce Tenneson. All Rights Reserved

I went around this exhibit several times and with various colleagues. Sarah Szwajkos said many of the images reminded her of Atget’s graceful and ethereal public park photographs in style and mood. Several people I talked with think the gold leaf process is fascinating and unique in its final presentation, but concurred that some of the images in the show are not as memorable as others – these subjects obviously resonated with the artist, but didn’t translate through to us as viewers. The discussion continued on to whether the process became the focus of a viewer’s attention, overwhelming the images themselves – but none of us came to a hard-and-fast conclusion on that score.

My first sense was that the portraits of a single tree are the most successful images as presented, but the more time I spent with several images that embraced larger content, such as “Lincolnville, 2011″, below, which includes six different depths of field all perfectly presented, that initial reaction unraveled.

Lincolnville, 2011 (Gold Leaf Mixed Media)©Joyce Tenneson. All Rights Reserved

I found the variable presentations and variety of sizes (smallest: 8″x10″ and largest: 66″x48″) a little schizophrenic, and kept having to adjust my reading of the works to absorb the ever-changing framing style. My preference would have been installing the works in groups of like presentation. I had long discussions with other viewers about whether the lighting was the major factor in how the works read – sometimes muted, sometimes glaring, from one angle gold, the other copper, others sepia. The gorgeous little “Glowing Tree, 2012″, at the top of this posting and my favorite work in the show, was probably the most overlooked because it rested casually without a spotlight on an antique desk top, well below eye level.

I love the fact that Tenneson is making portraits of trees. She writes in her artist’s statement that she approaches her tree subjects the same way she has approached her portraits of people: “Their life journey is visible as is often true of a human face.” It’s interesting, too, she is re-visiting this subject almost 40 years after her first museum exhibit in 1974 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in which she exhibited “a large series of tree images”.

This show definitely puts Joyce Tenneson in a place of leadership to Maine’s fine art photography community with her willingness to risk all and do what it takes to realize a personal journey and creative vision – a model of boldness and faith for the rest of us.

Bird Migration, Quebec, 1998 (Negative Gelatin Silver Print)©Judy Ellis Glickman. All Rights Reserved

ALERT! Judy Ellis Glickman is scheduled to speak about her work on Wednesday, July 11 at  UNE Gallery of Art, 5-6:30.

One of the more moving images I’ve seen in a while is “Bird Migration, Quebec, 1998″, above, at “Upon Reflection”, through September 30 at the University of New England Gallery of Art.  It’s a exhibit of 73 framed black and white works by Judy Ellis Glickman, the earliest image dated 1985, and 7 face-mounted color prints that partner with a slideshow in the downstairs gallery featuring a further 62 color images all from her current and ongoing explorations using color. “Bird Migration” struck me like a thunderbolt -  a succinct and deceptively simple 13.5″x19″ visual statement that defines the vastness of the universe at large and the natural world’s complete acceptance of its organized chaos. And then I saw it -  the kicker: a tiny, classic homestead at the bottom right on the horizon line. Within the vastness, is that irrepressible, ever present human existence. Me.

“Judy is a photographer and a humanitarian,” writes Howard Greenberg, of the Howard Greenberg Gallery in NYC, in his introductory essay included in the exhibit’s extensive catalog. And that explains a lot about the viewer’s experience at this exhibit. I found a tenderness in many of the works displayed, but I sensed immediately it came from within the photographer herself, rather than a mood she uses technology to create.

Night, Havana, Cuba, 2003 (Gelatin Silver Print)©Judy Ellis Glickman. All Rights Reserved

Judy Ellis Glickman got her start as a photographer in the 70′s and her early training included a workshop at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine. But the story really starts with her father Dr. Irving Bennett Ellis (1902-1977) – a highly regarded pictorialist photographer in California. As his daughter (and frequent model), she also met some of his colleagues – Ansel Adams and Edward Weston included. An auspicious start and one that would stick with you!

UNE Gallery Director Anne B. Zill writes that “Judy Glickman’s photographs are never predictable…” and the diversity of subjects covered in this exhibit bear that statement out. Glickman uses only natural or available light when she shoots and “sometimes uses film that also records the infrared rays of light existent in our atmosphere.”

Island Glen, Great Diamond Island, Maine, 1986 (Infrared Gelatin Silver Print)©Judy Ellis Glickman. All Rights Reserved

There are things for all viewers to learn in this exhibit, photographers and those of us who are only passionate about photographs. Glickman is very strong in the composition department, as evidenced by an early image “Shaker Doors, Sabathday Lake, Maine, 1987″. Her understanding of light, and in particular partnering with the infrared approach (difficult to reproduce effectively here), while from other photographers can seem gimmicky, is frankly exceptionally successful. The Great Diamond Island series, all infrared exposures, is one of the strongest groups of works in the exhibit, although the two dinghy shots seem out of place and distracting to me for several reasons. This series was shot over ten years, from 1985 – 1995 and “Island Glen, Great Diamond Island, Maine, 1986″, above, is simply nothing short of exquisite. The image is so elysian, it makes me hold my breath when studying it, so as not to mar the picture’s effect with my own imperfect humanity.

Another characteristic that makes many of these images unforgettable is expressed by exhibit Curator Stephen Halpert when he writes, “We are no longer outside the image, but move through the glass and into it…”. My heart seemed to stop when I stood in front of several of Glickman’s images of Holocaust concentration camps. These are not of the in-your-face “LOOK AT THIS AND BE SHOCKED” variety:  if ever the viewer will enter pictures in this exhibit, it is with these, as the artist has so completely substituted her camera for your own eyes it is uncanny. You are absolutely there, and the ability of the photographer to transport you so completely almost makes it difficult to breathe at times.

Exterior, Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland, 1990 (Infrared Gelatin Silver Print)©Judy Ellis Glickman. All Rights Reserved

Included in the exhibit are 60 color images (seven of them face-mounted, which I love, and then framed, which I don’t), billed as “abstracts”. I’m not sure I agree with the label, but I think they are important for several reasons, not the least of which because here is an example of a veteran artist turning a major corner with her work and exploring it very, very deeply and without timidity or apology. The move to this body of work using color, and very strong color at that, and the hook that the photographer herself is included in every one of the images, is obviously of the deepest importance to Glickman. But whatever her reason for taking this new path, in the end it is unimportant to the viewer, because successful art, regardless of the personal meaning that motivates and inspires it, is, in the end, universal.

Sunset, L.A., 2011  (Archival pigment print©Judy Ellis Glickman. All Rights Reserved

While I’ve written mostly about the emotional and aesthetic fall-out of this exhibit, it’s important to note the excellent print quality of the works themselves. Glickman’s longtime assistant Melonie Bennett is responsible for the black and white prints, and the 7 color prints are the work of David Segre of Zero Station.

Photographers will come away from this exhibit greatly inspired.  But all of us who seek life’s larger meaning through powerful works of art will come away with fuller hearts for having rested here.

Viewfinder 5©Meggan Gould. All Rights Reserved

Space Gallery on Congress St. in Portland has created a great new gallery space and the current show is Blind Spots: New work by Meggan Gould and Billie Mandle. (Gould’s work is offered through VoxPhotographs, in the interest of full disclosure.)

The show and the space are a terrific marriage as the lofty ceilings and industrial feel to the gallery bring out the best in the works on view. The big images by Mandle of parking garages hold their own here beautifully, and Gould’s face-mounted viewfinder portraits just glow. (To read a complete review that includes discussion of Mandle’s images, see Dan Kany’s insights in the 4/22 Maine Sunday Telegram.)

If you haven’t heard of Meggan Gould, click here to get educated as she’s building an impressive national reputation for her work. What you’ll see on this VoxPhotographs Artist News page is just what she’s up to in May. I’m not sure she’s appreciated here in Maine the way she should be.

Gould never takes the easy road. She created her GO OGLE series, sample below, by “averaging,” or merging, the first 100 images retrieved from a specific Google image search. A code was written that did it mathematically, averaging the size and then the pixel values. She didn’t just “try” twenty or so of these – she made 1000′s, eventually editing this mass of work down to several hundred she considers successful.

GO OGLE/Brain©Meggan Gould. All Rights Reserved

In her PINHOLE series, Gould made digital pinhole photographs while driving or riding on a train mostly in New England – quite the multi-tasking challenge. She wanted to record what she had zipped by regularly without taking it in – and it’s a terrific, challenging and complete series. She says: “I was interested in looking at the aesthetics of transition – of being in motion, and observing the classic points of landscape streaming by me. In this case I was driving through familiar (daily commute) territory, looking at the highway spaces but aware I could not always be actively engaged with them. The pinhole aspect allowed me to further abstract this peripheral vision, by necessitating longer shutter speeds.”

Pinhole Series/Train 11.2©Meggan Gould. All Rights Reserved

Back to the Viewfinder series on view at Space Gallery – who would have thought these little manufactured camera parts would have such unique personalities? Yes, each manufacturer has its own specific design with unique (and often enigmatic, Gould says) marks, but what happens to it over the life of the camera in the hands of possibly several owners is what dictates the unique personality of scratches, dust, hair and other detritus. With Single Lens Reflex cameras, this is how we saw the world for soooo long, but what happens when our vision stops with the viewfinder instead of traveling through and beyond? Gould asked herself. So, as per her habit, she set out to find the answer with her camera.

The Viewfinder series was selected as second place Curator’s Choice winner in the Santa Fe CENTER competition, and included in the May 26 opening of Second Nature: Abstract Photography Then and Now at the De Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA. Viewfinder is another very challenging project and Gould says “I shoot these with crazy macro extensions, and usually have to digitally composite them together, as more often than not I have to take multiple photographs to capture one, because of the tiny focusing area.” Isn’t being a fine art photographer about stretching your vision, your ability and the technology available? Gould does it in spades with each new body of work.

Viewfinder #13©Meggan Gould. All Rights Reserved

The presentation of her work at Space Gallery is second only to the images themselves, and her choice to have Keith Fitzgerald at Zero Station face-mount all of these behind plexi is inspired and completes the vision, as more photographers need to understand. Not only does Meggan Gould serve as an inspiring role model to the young photographers she teaches at Bowdoin, but to photographers at all levels she provides an example of how important quality and thoughtful presentation is to any exhibition of her unique visions.