PWMD

October 18 – December 9, 2017

PWMD is an artist team composed of  Marissa Dembkoski and Paal Williams - recent graduates of Lesley University College of Art and Design. The work intertwines artistic tensions from the history of photography, and contemporary modes of photographic production – questioning the constructs of visual culture.

Since its creation, photography has relied on available technology. Despite evolving methods of image production, a constant function of photography is that it simultaneously flattens a space and creates an illusion of depth. We are interested in this tension, and how it promotes perceptions of realism in photography.

To further investigate this idea of photographic flatness, we consider the z-axis that has been neglected from the photographic conversation. Through 3D prints and photographic still lives, we reinterpret the materials and expected subject matter of photography to distill the experience of looking at images to its fundamental properties: perspective, size, composition, and setting. We use traditional tools of photography; a 4×5 camera and black and white film, as a filter through which to examine these historical tensions.

In our image based world, three dimensional things become flat, and flat things become three dimensional.To accompany this conversation, we implement methods of installation that reference and challenge traditional modes of displaying photographs. We adhere images directly to the wall to emphasize flatness of paper, and react to the viewing space. -PWMD

Seth David Rubin

Ourglass

September 8 - October 14, 2017

This is Rubin’s first showing at the gallery and we are pleased to bring you his surreal environments. His use of homemade lenses allows viewing the world through a fluid reality.

I am increasingly a painterly photographer, intrigued by the intensity of color– the power of color fields, the flow of directional “strokes,” and dramatic linear detail. My photographs have become consciously tactile compositions. This new body of work continues to reflect my life-long interest in the fluidity of forms in space. I incorporate, abstract, and transform figures and environments to achieve my purpose. My technique, not digital but optical, enables me to compose in a manner that is closer to a painter’s process. Homemade lenses enable my imagination and emotion to shape and control what I see. -Seth David Rubin