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April 1 to May 2, 2010 –

hours:  Thursdays – Sundays, noon to 6 pm

Reception:  Saturday, April 10, 6 – 8p.m.

photographs by Judith Black and Moira Barrett

Judith Black – In My Own Backyard

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Artist Statement:
Using images of family as a touchstone for memories reveals a deep collective need to make our personal narratives and memoirs a true representation of the past, which of course they can never be. In thinking about how to make sense of almost 30 years of photographing my immediate family and self, I realized that the photographs I exhibited were our family album made public, or perhaps the reverse, my “art” made useful within the domestic space. The photographs are actual physical memories, evoking stories, truths and lies, all of which are ever changing.* For this exhibit, I work with one theme, one location, one space in which many of my photographs have been taken: the backyard.

*Abstract from a paper delivered at National Conference on Liberal Arts and the Education of Artists: School of the Visual Arts, New York City, New York, 2002

Bio:
Judith Black is a professor of Photography at Wellesley College. Her research and work examine the self and family in the genre of family portraiture. Her photography has centered on black and white large format portraiture of her immediate and extended family.  Black received a B.F.A. degree from Quincy College, Quincy, IL and an M.S. in Visual Studies at M.I.T.  Early on, a Guggenheim Fellowship enabled her to pursue her work documenting her family.  Her photographs have appeared in numerous national and international exhibitions and publications over the past 20 year and is in museum collections nationally, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Polaroid International Collection, the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, and the Houston Museum of Fine Art.

Moira Barrett – Thicker Than Water

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Artist Statement:
In life, we all struggle to find a place of comfort and connection, whether it is in our biological families or the circle of friends that we call our families. We all come into and leave this world alone; each of us falling prey to a feeling of separation that can only be relieved by finding our own point of kinship with others. In “Thicker Than Water,” I explore these points of connection and alienation as they pertain to my own family. As a lesbian couple with an adopted Chinese daughter, we each try to make connections that will comfort us and define who we are. Although we find warmth in our created family, it is not always enough to protect us from the undercurrent of alienation that runs through us all. We must work hard to maintain the connections that keep us grounded and feeling that we are loved. My aim is to explore the push and pull of these contrasting feelings as expressed in our family dynamic, while we question and test our identities and relationships.

Bio:
Photographer Moira Barrett is studying for her MFA in Visual Arts at Lesley University/Art Institute of Boston (AIB.) A graduate of  Buffalo State University with a BA in Art, over the years, she has worked in a variety of positions in the graphic arts industry including silkscreen artist, color lab manager, and photo retoucher while completing coursework in photography and graphic design.  Moira is married to Johanna Schulman, a financial planner, lives in Cambridge, MA and is the parent of Annie, age 11.