— 2016 Davis Orton Gallery Exhibitions

Thanks to our 2016 Exhibiting Artists

Davis Orton Gallery Exhibitors, 2016

Gallery and Portfolio Showcase Artists: Nicole Buchanan, Amanda Chestnut, Ben Arnon, Don Russell, Smith Eliot, Patricia Lay-Dorsey, Tiziana Rozzo, Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir, Ellen Feldman, Zelda Zinn, Amy Shapiro, David Curtis, Fern Apfel, Miriam Goodman, Kim Llerena, Tim Brill, Karen Bell, Dana Matthews, Michael O’Shea, Yoichi Nagata, Lawrence Schwartzwald, Jeanny Tsai, Graeme Williams.

2nd Annual Group Show, juror Paula Tognarelli.  Artists: Alysia Macaulay, Amy Shapiro, Andrea Rosenthal, Bill Clark, Bill Gore, Calli McCaw, Caroline Hudson-Naef, Chris Heintze, Conrad Pressma, Diana Nicholette Jeon, Diane Fenster, Dimo Dimov, Ellen Feldman, Emily Corbato, Emily Sheffer, Emma Powell&Kirsten Hoving, Emma Considine, Felice Simon, Flynn Larsen, Iaritza Menjivar, Jan Cook, Janet Holmes, J. Fredric May, Karen Klinedinst, Kay Canavino, Kevin Bond, Lee Kilpatrick, Leif Garbisch, Lori Pond, Lynette Miller, Marie Triller, Meg Birnbaum, Melissa Lynn, Michelle Rogers Pritzl, Nicholas Fedak II, Patricia Sandler, Philip Augustin, Rana Young, Rebecca Moseman, Robert Moran, Robert Dash, Sandra Chen Weinstein, Sarah Sterling, Sheri Lynn Behr, Susan Lapides, Susan Lynn Smith, Susan Swihart, Tamsin Green, Wayne Palmer, Yelena Zhavoronkova

20 photobooks exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery7th Annual Photobook Show, jurors Karen Davis and Paula Tognarelli. 20 Photobooks Exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery:  Angela Jimenez,Diane Cassidy, Ellen Slotnick, Georgia Landman, Graeme Williams, Jeanny Tsai. Jeff Evans,Juergen Buergin, Kyoko Yamamoto, Lawrence Schwartzwald, Lydia Panas, Mark Indig. Martin Desht, Mike Callaghan. Miska Draskoczy, Mo Verlaan, Patricia Barry Levy,  Sharon Lee Hart, William Glaser. Yoichi Nagata/
Above 20 plus the following artists at Griffin Museum:
Andrew Child, David Loble, Linda Morrow, Manda Quevedo, Eric Myrvaagnes, Ruth Lauer Manenti, Stephen J. Albair, William Betcher, William Chan, 
William Gore, William Fuller


7th Annual PHOTOBOOK Show

4 best of show books

Best of Show: Photobooks & Photographs
Yoichi Nagata, Lawrence Schwartzwald, Jeanny Tsai, Graeme Williams

Griffin Museum - Davis Orton Gallery Photobook LOGOSJurors: Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director & Curator, Griffin Museum of Photography
Karen Davis Curator/Co-owner, Davis Orton Gallery

Two Exhibitions

20 photobooks at
DAVIS ORTON GALLERY EXHIBITION   Hudson NY
November 19 to December 18, 2016

31 photobooks at
GRIFFIN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION
March 9 to March 31, 2017
Reception: March 9, 6:30-8:30pm

About the Artists and Their Books

Online Catalog

20 Photobooks Exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery

20 photobooks exhibited at Davis Orton GalleryAngela Jimenez Racing Age
Diane Cassidy Witness
Ellen Slotnick Traces
Georgia Landman Vaders Dochters
Graeme Williams Diverging Dreamlines
Jeanny Tsai Retratos do Reconcavo
Jeff Evans What’s Wrong With This Picture? 2
Juergen Buergin URBAN FEVER – Scenes from City Life
Kyoko Yamamoto The confined room, No. 6
Lawrence Schwartzwald The Art of Reading, a photo essay
Lydia Panas Falling From Grace …
Mark Indig Ohi:Yo
Martin Desht Photosonata
Mike Callaghan history on Friday (november 13, 2015)
Miska Draskoczy Gowanus Wild
Mo Verlaan Resonance
Patricia Barry Levy Flight
Sharon Lee Hart According to the Sky
William Glaser 41 Years
Yoichi Nagata Star of the Stars

Photobooks Exhibited at Griffin Museum
Andrew Child Havana: Light Beyond Vision
David Loble Witness
Linda Morrow Angel Trumpet
Manda Quevedo Common Views
Eric Myrvaagnes Captured by Light
Ruth Lauer Manenti Transitional Still Lives
Stephen J. Albair Hidden Gardens–Private Views
William Betcher Anthem: For a Warm Little Pond
William Chan Ten Years After Iraq
William Gore Side Roads
William Fuller The City: A Formalist View of American Urban Architecture


Identity

Nicole Buchanan

Amanda Chestnut

Exhibition Dates: October 8 to November 13, 2016
Reception for Artists: Saturday, October 8, 5-7pm

Portfolio Showcase  Identity: Race in America
Don Russell and Ben Arnon

Nicole Buchanan, The Skin I’m In      (more images)

CRJ 19 The Skin I'm In by Nicole Buchanan

CRJ 19 The Skin I’m In by Nicole Buchanan

AA 26 The Skin I'm In by Nicole Buchanan

AA 26 The Skin I’m In by Nicole Buchanan

Amanda Chestnut, Good Hair and Other Projects: Archives, Photographs, Ephemera, Artist Books

Now You Have Permission to Touch My Hair - artist book by Amanda Chestnut

Now You Have Permission to Touch My Hair – artist book by Amanda Chestnut

I am not your intellectual mammy, cotton apron with embroidering, by Amanda Chestnut

I am not your intellectual mammy, cotton apron with embroidering, by Amanda Chestnut

Portfolio Showcase  Theme: Identity – Race in America

Don Russell, Cowboys of Color      (more images)

Jason Griffin from Cowboys of Color by Don Russell

Jason Griffin from Cowboys of Color by Don Russell

Ben Arnon,  Black Lives Matter   (more images)

Black Lives Matter II by Ben Arnon

Black Lives Matter II by Ben Arnon


About the Artists

Nicole Buchanan, The Skin I’m In   

jt_23_theskinimin-700ar_01_theskinimin-700

Skin color has been used for centuries as the focus of discrimination against minorities. Nicole Buchanan created The Skin I’m In to call attention to this and to recognize the dignity of individuals who self-identify as African, African American and from the African Diaspora. 

In this series of portraits, Buchanan depicts her subjects’ head and shoulders, without clothes and jewelry (with some exceptions) to avoid triggering viewer assumptions. Each person emerges from a black background – darkness – into a luminous setting, which highlights facial features, tonality and texture of the skin. Each person stares into the camera meeting our gaze. Expressions, neither aggressive nor submissive, defy racial presumptions. The uniformity of Buchanan’s compositions underscores similarities while the range of skin tones and textures challenges the stereotype of these individuals being viewed similarly.

Buchanan made 50 portraits of undergraduates and graduate students at Rhode Island School of Design where she was completing work on a BFA. Davis Orton Gallery will be exhibiting 16 of them. Her goal is that The Skin I’m In will start meaningful discussions around race and identity.

Photographs courtesy of Gallery Kayafas and the artist, Nicole Buchanan.

Bio  Nicole Buchanan’s work has been exhibited at Gallery Kayafas, Boston MA; Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, Griffin Museum of Photography and Harvard University, among others. At Harvard, The Skin I’m In was shown in “Reflections on Freedom,” Dr. Walter J. Leonard Black Arts Festival. Buchanan is a recent graduate from the RISD with a BFA in photography and is represented by Gallery Kayafas, Boston MA.

Amanda Chestnut, Good Hair and Other Projects: Artist Books, Photographs, Archive and Ephemera

Installation-Banner - Why do you have to make everything about race? by Amanda ChestnutInstallation-Banner – Why do you have to make everything about race? by Amanda Chestnut

Amanda Chestnut, cyanotypes, artist book

Amanda Chestnut, cyanotypes, artist book

“I wonder if the struggles that my parents faced as an interracial couple, the brutality faced by my father because of the color of his skin, and the atrocities that were committed upon his ancestors all reside in me somewhere.”

In her photography and artist books, in her use of archival photography and emphemera, Amanda Chestnut’s narrative of race and gender conveys the emotion and the lasting impact of both personal experience and historic events.

“I spent many years allowing myself to be defined by my hair. This single feature, more than any other part of my body, has been used by others to measure how black I am, how white I am, how smart I am, how much money I have, and how much I am worth as an individual. I can’t help but explore why hair means so much.”

While many of the experiences that drive her work are deeply personal, in sharing them she has learned she is not alone. “This gives me strength to continue carrying this historical burden.”

Bio Amanda Chestnut holds an MFA in Visual Studies from The College at Brockport, SUNY. Since graduating in 2015, she has been exhibited throughout New York and was an artist in residence at the Center for Photography at Woodstock and at Genesee Center for Arts and Education in Printing and Book Arts. She is now Communications Coordinator of Genesee Center for Arts and Education.


Selected through our Portfolio Showcase Call for Work,
the gallery is also featuring
portfolios by Don Russell and Ben Arnon

Don Russell, Cowboys of Color

Machelle Baccus from Cowboys of Color by Don Russell

Machelle Baccus from Cowboys of Color by Don Russell

Few people realize that there is a rich black cowboy culture and history. The intent of Cowboys of Color portfolio is to make visible the modern black cowboy and the continuation of the black rodeo and ranching tradition into our time. Neither black nor a cowboy, at first Don Russell was a stranger at the rodeo, engaging a rider for a few minutes behind the bull chutes. As he continued to make portraits, rodeo after rodeo, he became an integral part of the rodeo team and friends with many of the cowboys. He now also schedules photo shoots, makes time for long conversations and records personal essays of some of the contestants.

“I’ve met old and young, men and women, and historic figures. I have had the great pleasure and privilege to be invited into this world; to make this work so freely; to hear the stories. and find so many wonderful new friends.” What started as an idea for an afternoon shoot at a Cowboys of Color Rodeo in Dallas TX has become a two year project resulting a book and a traveling exhibition.

Bio: Don Russell’s work has been featured in recent juried exhibitions at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA, Photo Place Gallery, Middlebury VT and Kadoya Gallery, Pueblo CO. Several of his images have appeared in Black and White Magazine including a series in the 2014 Portfolio Contest Winners Special Edition. Russell, of North Texas, studied photography at the University of Kentucky and The Maryland Institute, College of Art. He also holds a BS in Electrical Engineering.

Ben Arnon, Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter I by Ben Arnon

Black Lives Matter I by Ben Arnon

“This is a war and Black Lives Matter is the enemy,” is what Ben Arnon heard. TV and radio news spread fear across America, painting a picture of Black Lives Matter protests as dangerous, angry, anti-American, anti-police, and downright scary. Conservatives such as Rudy Giuliani and Sheriff David Clarke were the messengers of this gloomy portrait.

But Arnon was there and saw the protests. They were inclusive and filled with positive energy. All ethnicities, genders, ages, and sexual orientations were visible. As a photojournalist, he was inspired to capture the harmony and positivity of these protests.

“These photographs tell the truth. This is what democracy looks like. This is what America looks like.”

Bio: Ben Arnon is a New York City-based visual journalist whose focus is documentary reportage, street portraiture, and the impact of human existence on urban landscapes. Photographs from “Black Lives Matter” were exhibited during the 2016 DNC Convention in Philadelphia at an exhibition called Truth To Power.

Several of his series can be seen this Fall including: “Willets Point” at Photoville in ‘Battle of the Boroughs’ multimedia presentation; “RIO,” throughout New York’s Chelsea Market from October 1 to December 31; and four photographs in the central atrium of the Atlanta Airport through November 30.

Ben writes frequently for the Huffington Post, offering social commentary on a wide array of topics including visual arts, culture, society, digital media, and politics.


2nd Annual Group Show

Theme: Open (artist choice)

Juror: Paula Tognarelli
Executive Director & Curator: Griffin Museum of Photography
see Paula’s Juror Statement below

Exhibition Dates: September 3 – October 2, 2016
Reception for Artists: Saturday, September 17, 5-7pm

Thank you to all artists who submitted work.
Our juror, Paula Tognarelli, reported (as her FB friends know) that it was very difficult to make final selections from hundreds of very fine photographs.

click HERE for all PHOTOGRAPHS

click HERE for SHOW CATALOG

Exhibiting Artists

Selected Artists, 2nd Annual Group Show, Davis Orton Gallery

Selected Artists, 2nd Annual Group Show, Davis Orton Gallery

Alysia Macaulay, Amy Shapiro, Andrea Rosenthal, Bill Clark, Bill Gore, Calli McCaw, Caroline Hudson-Naef, Chris Heintze, Conrad Pressma, Diana Nicholette Jeon, Diane Fenster, Dimo Dimov, Ellen Feldman, Emily Corbato, Emily Sheffer, Emma Powell&Kirsten Hoving, Emma Considine, Felice Simon, Flynn Larsen, Iaritza Menjivar, Jan Cook, Janet Holmes, J. Fredric May, Karen Klinedinst, Kay Canavino, Kevin Bond, Lee Kilpatrick, Leif Garbisch, Lori Pond, Lynette Miller, Marie Triller, Meg Birnbaum, Melissa Lynn, Michelle Rogers Pritzl, Nicholas Fedak II, Patricia Sandler, Philip Augustin, Rana Young, Rebecca Moseman, Robert Moran, Robert Dash, Sandra Chen Weinstein, Sarah Sterling, Sheri Lynn Behr, Susan Lapides, Susan Lynn Smith, Susan Swihart, Tamsin Green, Wayne Palmer, Yelena Zhavoronkova

Juror’s Statement

Assembling a body of artists’ work is an honor and for some it is a way of life. I am deeply grateful to Karen and Mark for their trust and for the opportunity to jury this year.

The Davis Orton Gallery gave me one rule to follow. Choose 40 to 50 images, the maximum number they felt their gallery could exhibit in a meaningful way. It was up to me if I wished to select more than one image per artist. I chose to select one per artist. The jurying process was anonymous. While I recognized a handful of images, I was not sure of the authorship of most. My choices were based completely on the imagery alone in tandem with their narrative journey.

My first attempt at the perfect story included 173 images. The editor in me surfaced and brutally cut 123 images with a focus on “picturetelling.” It was a heartbreaking experience but necessary to do the job I was asked to do.

Thank you to all who submitted and shared your photography with me. What a pleasure it is to experience new work and reconnect with familiar imagery. It was exciting to see through the artists’ eyes what is on their minds and then to find threads that connect us.

I look forward to seeing the exhibit that we shaped together, on the gallery walls.

-Paula Tognarelli


Family: A Range of Realities

Smith Eliot
photo-based works and assemblages

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
photography 

Portfolio Showcase  Family – a range of realities
Tiziana Rozzo and Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir

July 30 to August 28, 2016


 Smith EliotFragments

Sticks n Stones by Smith Eliot

Sticks n Stones by Smith Eliot

Untethered Pearls by Smith Eliot

Untethered Pearls by Smith Eliot

Patricia Lay-Dorsey, Tea for Two

Tea for Two - 1 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Tea for Two – 1 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Tea For Two 21 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Tea For Two 21 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Portfolio Showcase  Theme: Family!
A range of realities. Ups & Downs. Savoring it. Dealing with it.

Tiziana Rozzo, Far From Home

Elena at Window by Tiziana Rozzo

Elena At The Window by Tiziana Rozzo

Charlotta Maria Haupdottir,  Moments

Ramona Street by Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir

Ramona Street by Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir


About the Artists

Smith Eliot, Fragments      (more fragments)

Hand Out by Smith Eliot

From Fragments: Hand Out from by Smith Eliot

Smith Eliot, Little Boxes    (more boxes)

The Book of Hurt n Healing by Smith Eliot

From Little Boxes: The Book of Hurt n Healing by Smith Eliot, 6.75″ x 4.5″ x 4.5″

“Our memories exist as points in space. They are muddied by time, and made obscure by a certain kind of accretion. Our minds draw figurative lines between these points, and give us the illusion of seamlessness, but memory is actually fragmented, perforated and fleeting.”

In Fragments, a series of collaged negatives, Smith Eliot describes events that have happened in her life from this perspective of fragmented, perforated and fleeting memory.

Smith has been collecting batches of negatives from various sources –garage sales, ebay, antique stores- since about 2003. She has over 25 thousand negatives at her disposal for the creation of these images.  Sometimes she starts out with a definite idea of what the final photo should communicate and how it should look, but more commonly, she start out with no idea at all, and simply begins cutting things that look “right,” and move them around until they fall into place.   She works on a light table, and after cutting the negative pieces, she also scratch them, sand them, spray them with junk and finally assemble them into a final composition. Also present in the images are shaved curls of silver, salt crystals, hairs and other random environmental flotsam. She then scans these tiny negative-assemblages adjusts for density, and prints them digitally.

It’s in the nature of Little Boxes to hide something…if the box is closed, the insides are hidden from view. If the box is open, the exterior cannot be seen. That fact: that there is always something hidden -something secret- is essential to how they work and essential to how human beings also work. Another important feature is that the viewer must touch, unlock, and open the box before the contents may be revealed.

Each of Smith Eliot’s Little Boxes is a one of a kind creation and its own little world. Each can take many weeks to make. Recurring themes include: the passing of time, memory, and challenging relationships. Smith uses wallpaper, paint, and paper-clay to sculpt the contours of the interiors. Inside, besides her own photographs, she use antique doll parts, bones, insects and leaves of old books.

Bio  Smith Eliot is a visual artist and analog photographer, and has been creating mixed media artworks since 1986.  She has been exhibited nationally, won numerous awards, and has been featured in photography publications such as Diffusion Magazine, Shots, B&W Magazine, Bokeh as well as in literary journals such as Calyx.

Smith graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, and holds an MFA from SUNY, Buffalo.  She currently teaches darkroom photography at the Portland and Clackamas Community Colleges.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey, Tea for Two   (more images) 

Tea For Two 4 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Tea For Two 4 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Tea For Two 24 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Tea For Two 24 by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

On January 28, 1966 Patricia Lay-Dorsey had her first date with a man named Eddie. After saying goodnight, she leaned against her apartment door said “I’m going to marry that man.” Ten months later, she did.

In 2015, the third coldest February in Detroit’s history kept her at home. “As I look through the lens of my iPhone camera, I see Eddie’s and my day-to-day life together against the backdrop of his playing “Tea For Two” on the piano and my singing along almost every night of the last 49 years.”

Bio  Detroit-based photographer Patricia Lay-Dorsey brings her training as a social worker and four decades in visual art to her humanistic photography. Her photo projects tell the intimate stories of people’s lives – including her own – as seen from the inside. Her best known work, “Falling Into Place,” is a self portrait book that documents her day-to-day life with a disability.

Lay-Dorsey has had solo exhibits in Michigan, New York, Massachusetts and China, and recently received the Critical Mass 2015 Rauschenberg Residency Award. Her photo essays have been featured on the NY Times Lens BlogHuffington PostFeature ShootBBC World Update and Newsweek Japan, among others. Time.com named @patricialaydorsey the Michigan representative in their August 2015 feature, Instagram Photographers To Follow In All 50 States.


Selected through our Portfolio Showcase Call for Work,
the gallery is also featuring
portfolios by Tiziana Rozzo and Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir

Tiziana Rozzo, Far From Home

Family by Tiziana Rozzo

Family by Tiziana Rozzo

Far From Home originated in a time of deep emotional struggle for Tiziana Rozzo. Having difficulty embracing the reality of her life so far from her native home, Italy, she decided to follow her children and re-learn how to connect with the world around her, searching for beauty. Her need for connection found its meaning in the memory of her own history, rediscovered though her children’s first experiences with the world. “Far From Home” speaks about childhood, imagination, connection and disconnection, hope and the importance of family relationships.

bio  Tiziana Rozzo was born and raised near Venice (Italy). After a career in the Neuroscience, she studied documentary photography at the New England School of Photography in Boston (MA) where she is now an assistant teacher. Her personal work focuses mainly on children, their relationships and the places where they work, play and live.

Rozzo most recently exhibited in the New England Photography Biennial at the Danforth Art Museum  juried by Susan Nalband, Director of 555 Gallery; Boston MA and the Curated Fridge, juried by Karen Haas, curator of the Lane Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir, Moments

Piers Court by Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir

Piers Court by Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir

In her series, Moments, Charlotta Maria Hauksdottir photographs families in their homes over time. For each final composition, she overlays several of these images, fading one into another, to create a single photograph where the interior remains mostly the same but the family’s actions and interactions, recorded within the image, exhibit a ghostlike appearance. Evoking feelings of both nostalgia and loss, the images briefly suspends time, creating room for thought about the familiar landscapes of our own memories and places.

bio  Charlotta María Hauksdóttir is an Icelandic fine arts photographer based in Palo Alto, CA. She has had solo exhibitions in Iceland at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography and the Reykjavik City Museum and in the US at First Street Gallery, Eureka CA and Zinc Details, San Francisco CA. Group exhibitions include Susan Eley Fine Art, NY; The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins CO and the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose CA.

Her photographs are in public and private collections all over the world and have been published in several magazines and books. She graduated with an MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2004, and previously received a BA in Photography from the Istituto Europeo di Design, in Rome, Italy.


Street Photography and the Urban Scene

Ellen Feldman 

Zelda Zinn

Portfolio Showcase
Amy Shapiro & David Curtis

June 25 to July 24, 2016


 Ellen Feldman, Urban Zips

EllenFeldman BigFootBig Foot by Ellen Feldman

Zelda Zinn, NY Revelations 

Zelda Zinn, NY Revelation - 0297D1NY Revelation 0297D1 by Zelda Zinn


Portfolio Showcase
theme: Street Photography & the Urban Scene: What’s New?

Amy Shapiro, Welcome to New York 1985 – 2005

Amy Shapiro-1984 Alphabet CityAmy Shapiro-1984 Alphabet City

David Curtis, Auto-Reflections

Auto-Reflection 5 by David CurtisAuto-Reflection 5 by David Curtis 


About the Artists


Ellen Feldman, Urban Zips   (more images)

EllenFeldman, Excavators

EllenFeldman, Excavators

“Urban Zips” combines Ellen Feldman’s interest in abstract expressionist painting with her longstanding work in street photography.  It is Barnett Newman’s work that inspired this project. He created “zips”: paintings in which a field of one color is bisected by one or more thin bands—or zips—of another color. In this series Feldman creates her own zips: one or more “slices” from her street photographs bisect a field of color (pavement, wall, or other urban surface). As the series has progressed, she has relaxed the grip of Newman’s modernism and refocused my attention on the grit of city life.

Bio

Ellen Feldman’s fine art photography reflects her background in film studies—in the primacy of physical gesture and frozen motion, of movement cut by the frame, and of bold color.

Her photographs have appeared in recent solo exhibits at the French Cultural Center, Boston, MA, the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA (satellite galleries), and the Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY and were featured in Women 360, South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, MA. She has published a popular photo/comic book of a dancer incorporated into a Fantastic Four comic: The Dancer as the Invisible Girl, and two books of street photography.

Feldman is Photography Editor of the Women’s Review of Books, published by Wellesley College. She holds a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University.

Zelda Zinn, NY Revelations  (more images)

NY Revelation 0251 by Zelda ZinnNew York Revelation 0251 by Zelda Zinn

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” HD Thoreau

Zelda Zinn’s New York Revelations is an exploration of the intersection of space and time in the urban environment.  In the fall of 2014, Zinn moved from Los Angeles to New York. She found the city messy and unpredictable as she became part of the crowd, navigating New York on public transport and on foot. As she struggled to learn her way around and adapt to the close proximity and exposure she felt, she photographed strangers on subway platforms and street corners, spaces very different from her former home.

In the quiet of her apartment, Zinn closely examined what she had shot. Enlarging her images to the pixel level, she began to paint over portions of a photograph in digital white – concealing some elements – highlighting or revealing others. These altered images, New York Revelations, offer the viewer insight into her process of untangling the clutter and chaos in her adopted city. In this way, Zinn also invites the viewer to engage with the empty spaces and examine the skeletal remains.

Bio: Zelda Zinn, now of Brooklyn, via the west coast and Texas, views photography as one of many tools available to artists, and likes to get her hands dirty with other media such as printing, painting, and making sculpture. Recent solo exhibitions of her photography include: WorkSpace Gallery, Lincoln NE; Soo VAC, Milwaukee WI and Art-Merge, Los Angeles CA. Group shows include Shoestring Press, Brooklyn NY; Walker Fine Art, Denver CO; and Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Long Island City NY.

She has been featured in online and print media publications including: Ain’t Bad Magazine, Plates-to-Pixels and Lenscratch.  Zinn holds an MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico and also credits artist’s residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute and Vermont Studio Center with having a profound impact on her art making.


Selected through our Portfolio Showcase Call for Work,
the gallery is also featuring
portfolios by Amy Shapiro and David Curtis

Amy Shapiro, Welcome to New York 1985-2005   (more images)

1994 Don Quijote by Amy Shapiro

1994 Don Quijote by Amy Shapiro

Amy Shapiro has created works of art outside the mainstream for thirty years.  In this newly released series, Shapiro documents performance art, interactive art installations and street culture in the Lower East Side, East Village, Williamsburg and Meat Packing District in New York City during the controversial process of gentrification. In retrospect the series of photographs defines a particular chapter in the story of an ever-changing city. The project portrays the spirit, the artists, the neighborhoods and the unique time period in which they worked.

Shapiro is a Head On Photo Festival 2016 Finalist. She has received art honorarium grants from the Burning Man organization in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009. She has a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and is co-owner of Luxlab.

David Curtis, Auto-Reflections   (more images)

Auto-Reflection 10 by David Curtis

Auto-Reflection 10 by David Curtis

In David Curtis’s Auto-Reflections, automobile reflections separate, distort, yet combine distinct structures from the organized chaos of New York City. A car’s surfaces become sectional canvases; alternate, converging universes bizarrely grounded in the same reality. Depending on light, curvature, opacity, and texture of a car’s glass and metal, the reflections distort the external world along with the car’s interior, merging them into a diaphanous, illusory universe.

David Curtis, Poughkeepsie NY, originally from the UK, wrote, produced, and directed science, technology, and health programming for Public Television at WNET/Channel Thirteen. Later, at the University of Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications, he directed video and multimedia communications. Since returning to New York he has developed a body of work consisting of street portraits, urban narratives, and cityscapes. A number of his images have been exhibited both nationally and regionally. His photobook, In the Moment: City Spaces, City Spaces, was exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery’s 6th annual photobook exhibition.


 Word and Image
Mixed Media and Photography

Fern T. Apfel

Miriam Goodman 

Portfolio Showcase
Kim Llerena and Tim Brill

May 14 to June 19, 2016

 Reception: Saturday, May 14, 5-7pm


Fern T. Apfel, Word and Image – mixed media  (more images)

Youth/Knowledge by Fern ApfelYouth/Knowledge, 14″ x 16″ mixed media: collage & acrylic by Fern Apfel

Miriam Goodman, After a Certain Age – photography   (more images)
Names Grew Elusive by Miriam GoodmanNames Grew Elusive by Miriam Goodman


Photography Portfolio Showcase

Kim Llerena, Ekphrasis   (more images)

Kim Llerena, PhotogeniaKim Llerena, Photogenia

Tim Brill, The Teddy Bear Series   (more images)

Tim Brill-Maybe we could have done betterMaybe we could have done better by Tim Brill


About the Artists


Fern T. Apfel-Rest with us a few days, Feast with us tonight.Fern T. Apfel, Word and Image

As a contemporary art-­maker, Fern T. Apfel of Kinderhook NY is drawn to both abstraction and image. Her unique and transporting approach developed gradually. First, came the serendipitous purchase of a postage stamp.

I had just finished a picture, but felt something was missing. I took a break and went to the post office stamps and the postmaster handed me one with a bluish green landscape called Alaskan Highway. I quickly went back to my studio and pasted the stamp in the upper left hand corner of the painting. And that’s how it all began.”

Collaged words were to follow when she found an old school primer. Instantly attracted to it, she started to cut up the words. After pasting random words into a few pictures, it struck her that she could make the words make sense. She put together a short poem.

As I rearrange words from another time and place, my pictures are a reminder of the relationship between our past and our present. I began my first narrative by trying to write what is-­ just the facts. But now it changes with each piece. Sometimes I open a book and see one word that I love, and start with that word. Sometimes I fall in love with the type, or the color of the page. Sometimes things I’m thinking about influence the thread of a story.”

Over the years, Apfel regularly returns to the book as image. At Davis Orton Gallery she focuses on work she has created where books, diaries and envelopes, rummaged from flea markets, garage sales and used book stores, are her source material for both image and word. (Above: Rest with us a few days. Feast with us tonight. 27″ x 16″; mixed media: collage and acrylic.)

Bio: Fern T. Apfel, described by the Schenectady Gazette as a “gentle postmodernist,” is represented in the permanent collections of The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY, The Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, the University Art Museum at SUNY Albany, The Albany Institute of History & Art, The Shaker Museum: Mount Lebanon, NY, The Columbia County Museum & Library, Kinderhook, NY, The Art Students League of New York and numerous private collections.

In 2015, Apfel of Kinderhook NY, won The Hyde Collection Purchase Prize at the Artists of the Mohawk Region exhibition at SUNY Albany. Apfel has also exhibited at the Samuel Dorsky Museum, The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, The Albany Institute of History & Art, & The Butler Institute of American Art. Apfel has exhibited alongside Ellsworth Kelly in The Collage Show at the Spencertown Academy.

She is a two-time recipient of the Individual Artists Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts and Twin Counties Cultural Fund Decentralization Program. Apfel has a Bachelor of Science in Art Education from the State University College at New Paltz and studied at the Art Students League of New York.

Miriam Goodman, After a Certain Age

Miriam Goodman, She stopped looking into the mirror and began looking into her past.Miriam Goodman, She stopped looking into the mirror and began looking into her past.

Miriam Goodman confronts us with what it is like to be aging and female. Her work is very poignant. She is able to bring a serious, as well as a lighthearted approach to the topic of aging. On one hand, she’s grappling with the frustrating and challenging aspects of aging, while on the other hand, she is able to laugh at herself.” Paula Tognarelli, Director: Griffin Museum of Photography.

Miriam Goodman (1938-2008) was a “writer who takes pictures”.

“In his book with John Berger, “Another Way of Seeing”, photographer Jean Mohr asked 10 people to interpret a picture. None of them agreed on its meaning. . Pictures are ambiguous.  Adding text to the image invites you to see the picture in a specific way; adding text makes the image concrete, particular, more personal.” Miriam Goodman 

 In this portfolio and multi-media presentation, Goodman tells the story of a woman getting older through the objects she handles and the spaces she moves through. As a group portrait –the project includes the perceptions of many women, and sometimes their language.   She gathered these perceptions by soliciting responses from other artists and friends. (Multimedia development: Lenni Armstrong.)

Bio Miriam Goodman was a poet, editor, photographer, and teacher. She was the first photography editor of the Women’s Review of Books and founder/co-coordinator of the Word & Image Lecture series sponsored by Lesley Seminars and The Center for Photographic Exhibition of the New England School of Photography. Her photographs have appeared in exhibition and on book jackets, in literary magazines, CD packaging and on the web. She was the author of three books of poetry including “Commercial Traveler” 1996, Garden Street Press, “Signal: Noise” 1982, and “Permanent Wave”, 1977 Alice James Books.


Selected through our Portfolio Showcase Call for Work,
the gallery is also featuring
portfolios by Kim Llerena and Tim Brill

Kim Llerena, Response to the sky at nightKim Llerena, Ekphrasis

In this body of work, verbal descriptions of visual artworks as well as passages relating to art, excerpted from books and essays, have been transcribed into pages of Braille. Each page is photographed in a way that interprets an essential element of the text that it features, layering description onto description and questioning what exactly is lost or gained in translation.

The transfiguration of tactile code into printed image serves as a metaphor, both for the power of photography to aestheticize the mundane and for the limitations inherent in the act of recording the world in two dimensions. (above: Kim Llerena, Response to the Night Sky  Prose written by the artist.)

Bio  Kim Llerena’a work often engages photography’s indexical and aesthetic properties as a means to critically examine dual implications of the medium: memory and aspiration, translation and description, art and snapshot.

Llerena exhibits nationally in addition to serving as faculty at American University. She was a semifinalist in the 2016 Print Center 90th Annual International Competition in Philadelphia, a finalist for the 2014 Trawick Prize in Bethesda, and a semifinalist for the 2013 Sondheim Artscape Prize in Baltimore.

Tim Brill, The Teddy Bear Series   

Tim Brill, Is He Gone?

The Teddy Bear Series explores experiences that diminish our innocence. The Teddy Bear is a timeless and powerful expression of innocence both in itself and as a trigger for memories of an earlier time. That time could be a specific memory of youth or a society’s collective memory of the past. (Above: Is He Gone? by Tim Brill)

Bio: In the studio, Tim Brill of Portland OR combines traditional painting and modern photographic sensibilities to create his images. He has exhibited his photographs in solo exhibitions at Wall Space Gallery, Seattle, WA and Camerawork Gallery, Portland OR and in group shows including: A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX; PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT and Kiernan Gallery, Lexington, VA. Brill’s work has been published online in Lenscratch (January 2015) and the Wall Space Gallery Flat File.



Plant Life/Landscapes
Indigenous, invasive. Leaves, vines, branches and bramble

Karen Bell

Dana Matthews 

Portfolio Showcase
Angilee Wilkerson and Michael O’Shea

April 9 to May 8, 2016

 Reception: Saturday, April 9, 6-8pm
  plus
Gallery Stroll BeLo3rd 


Karen Bell, Flotsam & Jetsam   (more images)

Spider by Karen Bell, from Flotsam & JetsamSpider by Karen Bell

Dana Matthews, Cyanotypes – an homage to Anna Atkins  (more images)

early spring, cyanotype by Dana MatthewsEarly Spring (cyanotype) by Dana Matthews


Portfolio Showcase

Angilee Wilkerson, The Vanishing Blackland Prairie   (more images)

Angel Wilkerson-AfterlightAfterlight by Angilee Wilkerson

Michael O’Shea, Invasive    (more images)

Michael O'Shea - Invasive 01Invasive 1 by Michael O’Shea


About the Artists

Karen Bell, Flotsam & Jetsam

Green Leaves by Karen BellGreen Leaves by Karen Bell

For several years Karen Bell has been exploring natural curiosities – dead birds, feathers, insects, reeds, twisted vines, shards of ice – photographed during her wanderings, or gathered and brought back to her studio where they get incorporated into her life and into her magical Flotsam and Jetsam prints.

Bell also creates layered images using vellum tacked loosely over inkjet paper. The effect is not unlike the rich density one observes when walking en plein air:  There is always so much to see, but it is impossible to focus on it all at once. As the vellum image ‘floats’ above the lower image, the translucent barrier forces the viewer to accept the conundrum as the two images merge into one.

Bio:  Karen Bell’s photographs are in the collections of, among others, the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Museum of Art (artist books and photographs), Pfizer Pharmaceutical and National Park Service, Ellis Island Immigration Museum. Recent exhibitions include: Small Works 2015, Alex Ferrone Gallery; 10th Anniversary Retrospective: Ten years of Creations at Moulin a Neff, Auvillar, France; Wild as Heart: Our Affair with Nature at Artspace, Raleigh NC and Visions of Nature, Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Her artist book, Flotsam and Jetsam was exhibited at Davis Orton Gallery and the Griffin Museum of Art in PHOTOBOOK 2014.

Bell has been an instructor of photography at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for over ten years and recently inaugurated Seeing New York Through the Lens, a series of private photography workshops. Bell is co-director of Plein Air Portugal, a painting and photography workshop offered in Travanca do Monte, Portugal.

Dana Matthews, Cyanotypes: an homage to Anna Atkins

Night Shower by Dana Matthews from Cyanotypes: an homage to Anna Atkins

“Contemporary life has mangled our ancient psychic connection to the natural world.” Dana Matthews wants her landscapes, made in jungles, rain forests and on coastlines around the world, to help restore that fundamental connection. These beautiful, pristine places are on the verge of destruction, development or degradation. Once gone, their healing power, both psychological and physical, is lost forever.

Matthews creates her environmentally friendly prints using the 19th century process, cyanotype. She coats 100% cotton paper with ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide then uses sunlight for exposure and available water sources for development.  This series was inspired both by the nineteenth century photographer Anna Atkins and Matthew’s love of horticulture. Anna Atkins is considered the first person to publish a book with photographic images and also the first female photographer. She published her books of British algae in 1843. Not only are they important scientific specimens but also beautiful works of art. (above: Night Shower by Dana Matthews.)

Matthews will also exhibit wearable art – cyanotype shirts.

Poppies, cyanotype shirt by Dana Matthews

Bio   Dana Matthews of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York has worked for over twenty years to create photographs and installations that are related to the environment and the sensitive time that we live in. She uses traditional and alternative processes such as wet-plate collodion, cyanotypes and gelatin silver printing.

Dana’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States and is represented in several domestic and international collections. Recent exhibitions include work at the Noorderlicht Photo Festival, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden Holland and solo shows at Urban Zen, Los Angeles CA;  and chashama gallery in Chelsea, NYC. A photographic installation as well as still life photographs were included in “Freak Antique” at Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. Photographs from her “Bordello” series were recently published in the book “Nude Art Today” by Editions Patou and “One Farm; One Decade” recently published in Burn Magazine.


Selected through our Portfolio Showcase Call for Work,
the gallery is also featuring
portfolios by Angilee Wilkerson and Michael O’Shea

Angilee Wilkerson, The Vanishing Blackland Prairie

Angelee Wilkerson-MilkweedMilkweed by Angilee Wilkerson

The Vanishing Blackland Prairie examines natural terrain, indigenous life and culturally ascribed value within one of the most endangered ecosystems in the country—the grasslands and Eastern Cross Timbers of north Texas and south Oklahoma– an unprotected land that is often and wrongly assumed to offer little in the way of transcendental beauty due in large part to the absence of monumental spectacle such as mountains and waterfalls.

Wilkerson’s work reveals the prairie to be a delicate ecosystem, wondrously connected to the region’s woods, thickets, floodplains and waterways. Countless relationships abide here. The raptor hunting in the prairie grasses relies on the woods for nesting. The migrating monarch depends almost exclusively on prairie milkweed – overlooked beauty and alterations within this compromised environment.

Bio  Angilee Wilkerson of Denton, Texas is an artist, adjunct professor and professional editorial photographer. Her work frequently examines the nature of alteration through landscape. Her photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally and featured in publications including: The Photo Review; Photo District News, Photographer’s Forum; and The Wall Street Journal. In addition to photographing prairie lands, waterways and woods, Angilee is a certified Texas Master Naturalist. She champions Texas prairie restoration, donating her time to education, outreach, and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within the North Texas area.

Michael O’Shea, Invasive

Michael O'Shea - Invasive 04‘Photography is an art of observation. It has little to do with the things you see, and everything to do with the way you see them.’ – Elliot Erwitt

In nature and in art there often needs to be conflict. Michael O’Shea of Valatie NY looks for less obvious beauty in nature. In this series, he understands that these vines are inherently destructive, yet beauty is there. O’Shea often takes his photographs from a different perspective. For example, in Invasive, he found himself lying on the ground, crawling in amongst the vines themselves. (Invasive 4 by Michael O’Shea)

Michael, thirty years after art school, has, in the past three years been focussing his attention on photography. He has exhibited his photographs in several juried exhibitions at the CCCA Gallery/Hudson NY; Spencertown Academy/Spencertown NY, Riverview Cafe/Stuyvesant NY and DYAD Wine Bar/Kinderhook NY.



Thanks to our 2015 Exhibiting Artists.

see 2015 Exhibitions

Kay Kenny, Miska Drascoczy, Mark Lyon, Robin Michal, Thomas Holton, Edie Bresler,
Mary Beth Meehan, Eleanora Ronconi Keith Johnson, Ruth Wetzel,
Steffen Kloster Poulsen,Peter Stern, Rebecca Clark, Daniel Mosher Long,
Bridget Murphy Milligan, Neil C. Jones, Gail Samuelson, Sharon Arnold,
Ellen Cantor, Norm Diamond/Photobook2015 best-of-show: Mara Catalan,
Annna Leigh Clem, Keron Psillas, Andi Schreiber,
Photographers of The Plural “I” Group Show and PHOTOBOOK 2015