Feeling Between Worlds by Cate McQuaid

“Chandra Méndez-Ortiz’s “Parks Entrance” depicts an eerily familiar world – Gordon Parks’ famous 1956 photo of a Black woman, Joanne Wilson, and her niece, Shirley Blackwell, standing beneath a blaring sign, “Colored Entrance,” outside a Mobile, Alabama, department store. Ah yes, we know this. But it’s easy to look at a 68-year-old photograph and reflect on how times have changed.”

To read the full article, click here.

Sunlit Sentiments: Yorgos Efthymiadis’s “The Lighthouse Keepers” at Gallery Kayafas by Douglas Breault for Boston Art Review

“The individuals and architecture are stitched together by a holy glow of sunlight. The prints are meticulous, containing details that beckon viewers to lean closer, to linger with the warmth and sincerity of tender connections, and the stillness within each image is palpable.” - Douglas Breault

To read the full article, click here.

Brookline painter Leslie Sills brings women’s art history to life by Cate McQuaid for Boston Globe

“She composes a more formal drawing the size of her canvas, puts tracing paper on top, and traces it with a chalk pencil. Flipping that, she transfers it to the canvas. That’s when the oil paints come out.” - Cate McQuaid

To read the full article, click here.

The Lighthouse Keepers by Suzanne Révy & Elin Spring for What Will You Remember?

“The aroma of flowers from a garden, the brilliant light of a summer’s day, a sour taste or the echoes of familiar voices influence our adult selves as the tactile reminders of an ephemeral but fundamental stage of our lives. Can we ever go back? In The Lighthouse Keepers, Yorgos Efthymiadis  returns to his native Greece searching for the people and places that nurtured him, and to make photographs that probe the essence and meaning of his young life.” - Suzanne Révy and Elin Spring

To read the full article, click here.

Unsung Heroes by Elin Spring for What Will You Remember?

“I admit it, I’m brain research junkie. My favorite behavioral study right now teases out the significance of factors affecting human longevity. Guess what has a greater impact than diet and exercise? Relationships. That’s right, our sense of connection to others is a robust predictor of longevity. Profound? Intuitive? The yearning for connection and our devastation at its loss consumes artists of every ilk. Photographers Kristen Joy Emack, Cheryle St. Onge and Jack Lueders Booth each address the potency of social bonds in solo exhibits at Gallery Kayafas in Boston’s South End arts district, on view through February 10th, 2024.” - Elin Spring

To read the full article, click here.

These are the people in her neighborhood: Cambridge photographer documents changing city in “Book of Saints” by Cate McQuaid for The Boston Globe

“For “Book of Saints,” she took portraits of ordinary people who make a community, even when the tide is against them: Manny, whom she met at a Black Lives Matter gathering after George Floyd’s murder; an undocumented friend Emack photographed with her back to the camera (titled with a pseudonym); best friends Clara and Rafa, whom Emack photographed separately in 2021 in front of a tree and a building.” -Cate McQuaid

To read the full article, click here.

Frank Armstrong: 2023 for What Will You Remember?

“As jets stream overhead and cars race along Interstate highways, photographer Frank Armstrong seeks “the obscure and transitory” landscapes along North America’s byways. In relishing this rarified relationship to the mostly untraveled swaths of countryside, he discovers symbols and signs, often marked by the passage of time, that can appear whimsical, iconic or ironic. A selection of his striking photographs is featured in Frank Armstrong: 2023, on view at Gallery Kayafas in Boston’s South End through December 30th, 2023.” - Elin Spring

To read the full article, click here.

Best Photo Picks: September 2023 for What Will You Remember?

“Camilla Jerome’s solo exhibit Bodies of Water is a visualization  and meditation on disability as a fluid state. Collecting samples of water from ocean and bath, Jerome makes cyanotypes with salt, sand, soap, and seaweed in a variety of tones and textures that emulate water and its ability to disrupt expectations.” -Elin Spring and Suzanne Révy

To read the full article, click here.

The Boston Globe reviews Mroczek and Barboza-Gubo’s Momias de los Cóndores in their Layers of Meaning in Momias de los Cóndores

“Juan Barboza-Gubo and Andrew Mroczek were traveling in Peru in 2015, photographing sites where hate crimes were said to be committed against LGBTQ Peruvians, when they happened upon another subject: Incan mummies.” - Cate McQuaid

To read the full article, click here.

The Boston Globe features Audrey Goldstein’s Intimate Toxicities in their “Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond”

“Despite her dark themes, Goldstein weaves in community with a participatory “Conversation Quilt,” inviting viewers to connect and share thoughts and comfort,” writes Cate McQuaid.

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember?” Adds us to their Best Photo Picks June 2023

“Against the backdrop of a chaotic world, Heins’ gentle repetitions guide viewers toward the solace of order while offering sparks of delight in unexpected discoveries. In the Alcove, Zia Ayub presents his atmospheric photographs of the natural world.”

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember?” Reviews Lee Wormald’s Time on Flores, Pat Falco’s A Graveyard in the Sun, and Collection Selections III in Searching for Home

“By peeling away the distractions of saturated color, Wormald focusses his keen eye on light, form, texture and space. There is a laconic rhythm to his work that echoes in the cadence of ‘island time.’”

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember” Reviews Emily Belz, Bill Franson, and Vanessa Leroy in Passages at Gallery Kayafas

“Many images are marvelously layered, like the mysterious chrysalis of ‘Becoming.’ Leroy’s assembly is as encompassing as it is fragmentary, creating a quilt with threads that transport her entrenched memories into an imagined future ‘as our bodies lift up slowly.’”

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember” Features Judy Haberl’s Black & Blue
in Best Photo Picks December 2022

“In her solo exhibit Black & Blue, artist Judy Haberl creates monoprints from photographs she made using the backlit window frame over her kitchen sink during the long, dark pandemic shut-down. Haberl’s meditations on this period are at once solemn and fanciful, a nuanced reflection of the conflicting desires for sanctuary and escape. On view from November 4th – December 10th, 2022, there will be Receptions with the artist on First Fridays November 4th and December 2nd from 5:30 – 8:00pm.”

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember” Features Judy Haberl’s Black & Blue
in Best Photo Picks November 2022

“In her solo exhibit Black & Blue, artist Judy Haberl creates monoprints from photographs she made using the backlit window frame over her kitchen sink during the long, dark pandemic shut-down. Haberl’s meditations on this period are at once solemn and fanciful, a nuanced reflection of the conflicting desires for sanctuary and escape. On view from November 4th – December 10th, 2022, there will be Receptions with the artist on First Fridays November 4th and December 2nd from 5:30 – 8:00pm.”

To read the full article, click here.

The Boston Sun Features New Worlds: Women to Watch

“An audience of almost 100 gathered to view artwork by the five nominated artists: Candice Smith Corby, Woomin Kim, Ceci Méndez-Ortiz, Chandra Méndez-Ortiz, and Daniela Rivera, and to hear from gallery owner Arlette Kayafas; Sarah Treco, President of the Massachusetts State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (MA-NMWA); Grace DeWitt, National and International Outreach Programs Coordinator for the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA); and the exhibition’s nominating curator, Lisa Tung, Artistic and Executive Director of the MassArt Art Museum (MAAM).”

To read the full article, click here.

New Worlds: Women to Watch Featured in
The Beacon Hill Times & The Boston Sun

“An art exhibit that kicks off with an opening reception on Thursday, Oct. 20, and runs through Saturday, Oct. 29, at Gallery Kayafas in SoWa will showcase the work of five female artists with ties to Massachusetts.

“New Worlds: Women to Watch” is the latest exhibit in the Women to Watch (W2W) exhibition series, which was conceived by the National Museum of Women in the Arts  (NMWA) in Washington, D.C., the only major museum worldwide solely dedicated to championing women through the arts.

W2W was created specifically for NMWA’s 29 U.S. regional and international affiliated committees, including the Massachusetts State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (MA-NMWA).

This is the seventh year in a row that MA-NMWA has participated in the W2W exhibition series, which, according to Sarah Treco, president of the committee, “has proven to be a real-career builder for promising women artists.”

Lisa Tung, executive director of the MassArt Art Museum, has selected the five artists whose work embodies this year’s “New World” theme for the upcoming exhibition at Gallery Kayafas. These participating artists include Candice Smith Corby, Woomin Kim, Ceci Méndez-Ortiz, Chandra Méndez-Ortiz, and Daniela Rivera.” - Dan Murphy

To read the full article, click here.
To read the Boston Sun, click here.

Our Choice, Our Voice Pop-Up Fundraiser
Featured in the Boston Globe

“OUR CHOICE, OUR VOICE: A PROTEST POSTER POP-UP FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS August exhibitions at Gallery Kayafas are often loose and experimental. This year, owner Arlette Kayafas, spurred by the Supreme Court’s June overturning of Roe v. Wade, has mounted a benefit exhibition for Planned Parenthood. She invited artists to craft protest posters, come in, and pushpin them to the wall. On Aug. 5, during SoWA’s monthly First Friday event, the gallery will hold a reception from 5:30 to 8 p.m.” - Cate McQuaid

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember” Features Gallery Kayafas
in Best Photo Picks Summer 2022

“What can we do when it feels like our human rights and personal safety are being stripped away? We are not usually political in this forum but the recent activism of our judicial branch and paralysis in our legislative branch threaten every aspect of our civil rights and civic life. Art has always addressed our deepest human concerns. It is no accident that we can find art confusing or disturbing, that it can challenge our assumptions and question our beliefs. Or, that it can soothe our frayed nerves and preserve a sense of dignity and sanity. We invite you to explore all that the agitating and splendid world of photographic imagery has to offer in this expanded summer issue. As always, we organize by geographical region for your planning convenience and will update our listings regularly through August. May you find inspiration and stay engaged.”

To read the full article, click here.

The Boston Globe Features Sundial
in Things To Do Around Boston This Weekend And Beyond

“Charland investigates photography’s luminous chemical and digital magic. For this exhibition, he exposed black-and-white film negatives to red, green, and blue filters. Digital tools read the information in those negatives as color. Charland then used a mix of digital and analog methods to create color prints that turn shadows into rainbows, tracing the arc of an afternoon in color.” - Cate McQuaid

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember” Reviews Sundial & Ongoing Work

“Here are some reasons to be cheerful: winter is finally succumbing to summer, the recent Covid-19 surge is showing signs of abating, and there is enthralling photography to be enjoyed in person in Boston. For a truly dynamic experience, head to Gallery Kayafas in the SoWa arts district, where two exhibits featuring exceptional recent work by seven contemporary photographers is on view through July 9th, 2022. “Sundial” features immersive experimental color work by Caleb Charland, while “Ongoing Work” offers alluring looks at recent B&W photographs by Michael Hintlian, Ross Kiah, Maxwell LaBelle, Michael Lafleur, Cheryle St. Onge, and Lee Wormald. These shows foster connections and if you want to share in a long-overdue sense of community, there will be a Reception with the artists on First Friday, July 1st, 2022 from 5:30 – 8:00 pm.”

To read the full article, click here.

“What Will You Remember” Best Photo Picks June 2022

“Gallery Kayafas, SoWa – Photographer Caleb Charland is enthralled by the (mostly invisible) laws of physics and utilizes a variety of photographic processes to offer viewers the splendor of our physical world in imaginative ways only a camera can capture. For his solo show Sundial, he has essentially inverted the process of early color photography by creating “color separation,” revealing an entrancing kaleidoscope of photographic wonders.

Also on view, Ongoing Work curated Gus Kayafas features a selection of recent portfolios of black and white photographs by Michael Hintlian, Ross Kiah, Maxwell LaBelle, Michael Lafleur, Cheryle St. Onge, and Lee Wormald.”

To read the full article, click here.

Ellen Rich’s Rub For Good Luck
Featured in Greg Cook’s Wonderland

“This work began over two years ago as the covid warnings and the political climate became increasingly threatening,” Ellen Rich writes of her exhibition of abstract paintings “Rub for Good Luck” at Gallery Kayafas in Boston. “I took refuge in my beloved studio of 33 years.”

Working with acrylic paint and oil pastel on paper and duralar served as an act of reassurance. “Playing with abstract shapes and high key color I hoped to show solidarity and connection with my fellow humans, to communicate the thought that we are all in this together,” Rich writes. “Art that makes us feel good is as valid as any other.”

To read the full article, click here.

Kathleen Bitetti’s The Sea Hates A Coward
Featured in Greg Cook’s Wonderland

“These works are small scale visual odes to the power and terror of the ocean,” Boston artist Kathy Bitetti writes of her exhibition of collages “The Sea Hates a Coward” at Gallery Kayafas in Boston from April 22 to May 28, 2022.

The 45 small collages (the biggest is 11 inches wide) are a covid pandemic project inspired by 15 quotes she’s collected about the sea, as well as the second-hand frames in which they’re displayed. The exhibition title is from Eugene O’Neill’s 1931 play “Mourning Becomes Electra.” Bitetti writes that the collages draw from her mapping projects, “Crossings: Massachusetts-Malta (2009-2019)” and “Crossings: Emerson Was Here (Boston),” about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1832 journey aboard a cargo ship from Boston to Malta. “This was the trip that transformed Emerson into the “Emerson” the world knows,” Bitetti writes.

To read the full article, click here.

RECONSTRUCTED at Boston’s fpacgallery
with Gallery Artists Astrid Reischwitz & Yorgos Efthymiadis

Curated by Yorgos Efthymiadis, RECONSTRUCTED at fpacgallery located at 300 Summer Street features the work five artists including Gallery artist Astrid Reischwitz. The exhibition will be up from April 17 - June 4, 2022.

“Every other year when I return. to visit my homeland, I cannot shake off. a feeling of non-belonging. Retracing the long traveled paths of my memories, I struggle to fit into a place I had consigned to. the past in the process of moving on with my life, only to now realize that I have been banished in return. As an artist, I am drawn to work that explores these ideas of origins and home. I feel inspired to share the work of four photographers, along with my latest body of work, who approach this deeply personal subjects from different vantage points.” - Yorgos Efthymiadis

Read more

Kristen Joy Emack Named a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow

We are proud to announce that Gallery artist Kristen Joy Emack was named a 2022 Guggenheim fellow among an impressive list of photographers. Congratulations!

“Now that the past two years are hopefully behind all of us, it is a special joy to celebrate the Guggenheim Foundation’s new class of Fellows,” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow in Poetry. “This year marks the Foundation’s 97th annual Fellowship competition. Our long experience tells us what an impact these annual grants will have to change people’s lives. The work supported by the Foundation will aid in our collective effort to better understand the new world we’re in, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. It is an honor for the Foundation to help the Fellows carry out their visionary work.”

Read more

Caleb Cole’s In Lieu of Flowers Featured on Lenscratch

“As straightforward and challenging as it could be – one of art’s purposes, for that matter, Caleb Cole’s self-reflexivity, defies assumptions, generates questions, and constantly challenges apparently immutable concepts through photographic practice. The following work, In lieu of flowers, is an emotional and particularly conceptual way to address violence against Trans people in two social, cultural, and economic contexts. We were able to discuss some of them with Caleb in an interview.”

Read more

5 Years of Aspect Initiative at Danforth Art Museum

Over the past five years, the online gallery Aspect Initiative has showcased some of the finest photographic voices working today, with a specific focus in New England. This exhibition moves the works from the screen to the Museum walls, bringing artists together in one space to highlight and celebrate recent work.

Congratulations to Gallery artists Emily Belz, Yorgos Efthymiadis, Bill Franson, and Astrid Reischwitz.

Read more

Boston Globe Features American Roadsides

“FITCHBURG — The sun shines, metal glistens, paint peels, and mannequins kick up their heels in the photographs on view in “American Roadsides: Frank Armstrong’s Photographic Legacy” at Fitchburg Art Museum. Armstrong’s America, a landscape dotted with gleaming silos, corroding relics, and plastic pink flamingos, is like a fresh summer lemonade: It’s sweet but tart, there’s some pulp, and it sure does slake a thirst.”

To read the full article, click here

Gallery News: March 2022

Gallery Artist Caleb Cole is part of an exhibit at The Print Center in Philadelphia from January 21 - March 12, 2022. He is one of the finalists in the 96th Annual International Competition Solo Exhibitions, showing his anthotypes, In Lieu of Flowers.

Gallery Artist Kevin Bennett Moore will be including one of his self-portraits in an online exhibit, Relentless Melt, at Launch F18 from March 3 - 26, 2022.

Gallery Artist Azita Moradkhani is part of a group exhibit at the Jane Lombard Gallery in New York, say the dream was real and the wall imaginary, curated by Joseph R. Woline. It will be on view from March 11 - April 23, 2022.

Frank Armstrong’s American Roadsides at Fitchburg Art Museum featured by What Will You Remember?

“Frank Armstrong keeps rolling. During a two decade career teaching photography at Clark University, Armstrong would take long trips during the summers, often accompanied by students, touring the back roads through small towns and across vast prairies. He prefers to drive slowly, no more than about 35 miles per hour, which has allowed him to find quirky farm stands, kitschy advertisements, decaying structures, and the occasional orphaned toilet. A selection of work made on these day trips over the past ten years, alongside photographs by seven of his students, is on view in American Roadsides: Frank Armstrong’s Photographic Legacy at the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM) through June 5th, 2022. In addition, the museum presents selections from their photographic holdings in Quirky, Beautiful, Ordinary: American Roadsides from the FAM Collection, which will be on view through May 29th, 2022.”

To read the full article, click here

Boston Globe Features Offshoot Collaborations

Collaborating entails letting go of control. Imagine doing it with your parent or adult child. The shared history may make the process all the richer — or all the more fraught.

“How does one make art with your mother?” Heder asks in a joint artists’ statement with Harries. “When your mother is the artist you have most admired throughout your life?”

To read the full article, click here

Exquisite Corpse Invitational

The artists created an Exquisite Corpse Invitational reaching out to artists, family, and friends asking them to generate their own pieces and bring them to the gallery for exhibition. Over 25 individuals connected, generating a wide array of wonderful and inventive responses. Additionally, we invite visitors to the gallery to take part in the experience and produce their own Exquisite Corpse. Your drawings will become part of the exhibit.

Over the past two years, we have been isolated from each other. The invitational has given people the opportunity to come together in conversation and collaboration, building back a sense of community through art. 

Boston Globe Features Anne Lilly’s Events in a Field

“An artist, a crop of new work, and the drought-ridden Oklahoma prairie that inspired it…”

“Over the past year, it struck me that my way of painting might be related to farming — a bequest, perhaps, from my grandparents, who were tenant farmers. After drawing a grid on a flat surface, I cast an array of marks into it and irrigate them with a gradient of ever-paler washes. The marks then grow in organic and unpredictable ways, retaining the traces of earlier states. The whole field becomes an intricate and incremental record of time’s progress.”

To read the full article, click here

“What Will You Remember” Reviews Collective Feelings

“Caleb Cole collects. The ephemera and found photographs on view at Gallery Kayafas are a testament to his quirky sense of humor and his deep empathy for the humanity of queer lives. Filling three rooms in the gallery, Cole employs installation, video, vernacular and alternative process photography to weave thematic threads of comfort and pain in the history and culture of the LGBTQIA community. His exhibition, Collective Feelings will be on view through December 4th, 2021 with a reception planned for Friday, December 3rd at 5pm.” - Elin Spring

To read the full article, click here

Boston Globe Reviews Caleb Cole’s Collective Feelings

“Some of Caleb Cole’s art will disappear. The impression it leaves will not,” Cate McQuaid titles the article. “Caleb Cole’s installation ‘In Lieu of Flowers,’ in their show ‘Collective Feelings’ at Gallery Kayafas, is made from roses. The artist lines the walls with 88 anthotypes, a photograph that uses a plant-based emulsion, muddled with roses from the artist’s garden. They’re selfies of trans people murdered in the United States since February 2020, such as Jahaira DeAlto Balenciaga, a trans activist and ballroom drag artist stabbed in her Dorchester home in May. Her eyes are wide and gentle…Anthotypes aren’t fixed; they disappear. Like the roses, they are fading.”

To read the full article, click here

Gallery News: October 2021

Gallery Artist Kiresten Joy Emack featured in Mary Stanely’s Ones to Watch Exhibition on Lenscratch.
In the center of the exhibition, Kristen Joy Emack’s portraits arrive somewhere between family photographs and mythic painting in their compositions and thin gold frames, elevating the love between family and the representation of young black girls. Read more here

Gallery Artist Shawn Bush is among the winning artists of Aperture's Creator Labs Photo Fund.
Through the lenses of the natural landscape and propaganda imagery, Shawn Bush examines the intersections of power, sustainability, and whiteness in the US. Working in his studio, Bush draws from propaganda imagery from the 1900s, 1960s, and 1970s to create his starkly lit, almost surreal black-and-white photographs. Throughout his process, Bush has considered the impact of the fossil-fuel industry on the natural environment, local economy, and future prospects of those left behind by corporations. The resulting series, Angle of Draw, considers the ways framing imagery impacts the national imagination—upholding systems of social, political, and economic control. “I was thinking about the photographic frame and the ability to crop as a form that censors and advertises,” Bush says.
Read more here

“What Will You Remember” Reviews BUDDAH + CRIST

"I write this on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, remembering an attack that brought our nation together in mourning. Two decades on, our nation is reeling from the tenacious attack of a pandemic that is tearing our society apart. Both events have brought us face to face with our mortality, which makes it especially timely and poignant to consider how different cultures remember loved ones who have died. In “BUDDHA + CHRIST” at Gallery Kayafas in Boston’s South End, Robert Richfield takes an agnostic look at the talismans of mourning in enlightening photographs of cemeteries and shrines that serve as “gateways into the lives and cultures they memorialize.” In the Alcove at the Gallery, Sanjé James’ “Familiar Interplay” memorializes a year of isolation, a struggle to come of age and preserve a sense of community with her “remote” senior class at Lesley Art + Design. By contrasting opposite ends of life’s spectrum, these exhibits elucidate the fabric of cultural identities."
- Elin Spring

To read the full review, click here

Current Hours / Safety Protocols

Our regular hours are Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5:30, and by appointment.

You can schedule an appointment by emailing arlette@gallerykayafas.com or
calling the gallery at 617-482-0411.

At this time, masks are required for those visitors who have not been vaccinated.

“What Will You Remember” Reviews Current Exhibitions

"One photographer poses questions while another seeks sanctuary in two solo photography exhibits about the significance of place at Gallery Kayafas in Boston's South End. In his probing series 'Mason Dixon: American Fictions', Bill Franson journeys to alien terrain in the American south, an area steeped in national history and fraught with contradictions that he captures with an incisive outsider's eye. Bruce Myren's contemplative series, 'Fort Juniper', conveys deep emotional connections to the area surrounding his childhood home in Amherst, MA as he meanders through whispering forests along the Mill River to the woodland cottage of late poet Robert Francis. In addition, Vanessa Leroy's imaginative cyanotype memoir 'there's a place I want to take you' is being held over in the alcove gallery." - Elin Spring

To read the full review, click here

Boston Globe Reviews Bruce Myren's Fort Juniper

Cate McQuaid writes, "Photographer Bruce Myren grew up along the Mill River in Amherst, down the river from poet Robert Francis (1901-87). Francis, who crafted lyrical and canny verses, had built his own small house in 1940, and lived a frugal life there until he died. He called the house Fort Juniper. Today, the Robert Francis Trust maintains the house for poets-in-residence...

...The landscapes of childhood imprint themselves on the psyche, ripe with possibility. It's the poet's and the artist's job to send us tumbling back into that everyday marvel. With Francis as his muse, Myren rediscovers the sacred in a modest home in an ordinary wood."

To read the full review, please click here.

Black Lives Matter

A lot has happened since we were last together for First Friday on March 6th. 

In addition to the extremity of these last few months, reoccurring issues of systemic racism and police brutality have once again been undeniable with the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. As thousands upon thousands continue to come together to protest, communities are no longer staying silent and are refusing to allow their voices to go unheard. 

As a gallery, we believe that Black Lives Matter. We stand in solidarity and support with those who are fighting to be heard and continue to fight daily for racial justice and equality. We pledge to amplify these voices as constant change is necessary. As we return to work here at Gallery Kayafas, we will continue to focus our efforts to listen, discuss, and address the massive imbalances regarding lack of representation in the arts community in addition to daily life.

Gallery Kayafas will continue through exhibitions, programming, and conversations to implement sustained action to participate in large scale reform. Seeing that there is a need for increased flexibility in exhibition planning, we are dedicating the Alcove Gallery as a place to more frequently exhibit diverse artists and voices in response to current and systemic matters at hand. We believe this space should be used to provide more immediate conversations surrounding issues that plague communities and individuals in our city and beyond. 

New Gallery Artist: Kevin Bennett Moore

We're happy to announce our most recent addition to Gallery Kayafas, photographer Kevin Bennett Moore. 

Kevin Bennett Moore (b. 1996) is a recent graduate with Departmental Honors from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (BFA '20). The Boston-based photographer chooses to work with self-portraiture in order to discuss his own experiences translated through historically inspired fabrications. Aiming to relay queerness on camera, he interprets intuitive ideas into narrative stills by setting up scenarios that allow him to speak freely without interruption. Moore is influenced greatly by gender performativity and films, ideals of mid-century American culture, what goes into creating a set, and how far he can transport the viewer.

What Will You Remember? Reviews Current Exhibitions

“Memory is fickle and fleeting. From the entirety of our life’s events and the histories passed down to us, our recollections are colored by a medley of perceptions and feelings. What we remember – and how – instills our lives with meaning and directs our actions. That sense of consequence resounds through the current gathering of four engrossing exhibitions on view at Gallery Kayafas in Boston’s South End.”

“At the entrance to Gallery Kayafas, an installation piece by Astrid Reischwitz literally sets the table for a journey across four narratives that are each beguiling and profound in their own way. A small dining table beset by the dirt and stones of a foreign homeland is adorned in crisp embroidered linens and set with toppled fine china, ripped photographs and other artifacts torn from the past. They have been transported, piecemeal, into the present in an allegory for the nature of memories.” —Elin Spring

To read more, please click here.

Recent MFA Boston Acquisitions include gallery artists Caleb Cole & Tara Sellios

On Mary 28th, the Museum of Fine Arts  announced a new series of initiatives to support contemporary artists during the quarantine/pandemic. We are pleased to announce that the MFA added work from Gallery Kayafas artists, Tara Sellios and Caleb Cole.  

"Contemporary artists are part of the fabric of our community, and essential to who we are as an institution. Their commitment, innovation and engagement with the world inspires us in times of challenge." 
- Matthew Teitelbaum (Museum Director at MFA Boston)

Over half of the artists on the list are currently based in Massachusetts and includes names like Lavaughan Jenkins and Tara Sellios. These emerging and mid-career artists have work that ranges across disciplines, from photography to sculpture to painting, and for many of them, this will be the first time their work has entered the MFA's collection.

Gallery Artist, Astrid Reischwitz,
Included in Two Boston-area Exhibitions

Photographic Resource Center's:  EXPOSURE: The 24th Annual PRC Juried Exhibition. 
Click here to view the exhibition.

Griffin Museum of Photography's: 26th Annual Juried Members' Exhibition: Reischwitz also received the "Griffin Award" in conjunction with the exhibition.
Click here to view the exhibition. 

Astrid Reischwitz is a Boston-based photographer whose work explores the possibilities of storytelling from a personal perspective. Her projects include intimate views of private spaces and reflections on her own history and values. Using keepsakes from family life, old photographs and storytelling strategies, she builds a visual world of memory, identity, place, and home.

Reischwitz began her study of photography at the International Center of Photography in New York soon after moving to the United States from Germany. She continued her education at the New England School of Photography, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Lesley University, and the Griffin Museum of Photography. She is a graduate of the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, with a PhD in Chemistry, and holds a Certificate in Arts Administration from New York University.

Review of our Current Exhibitions
By What Will You Remember?

"At a time when shooting with film and printing in a wet darkroom have practically become "alternative methods", Gallery Kayafas brings us the sumptuous silver gelatin prints of three contemporary photographers: The Way West by Peter Kayafas, You and I by Peter Chan, and Late Nights by Logan Nutter. Each employs the venerable B&W photographic tradition to see slices of the world anew, presenting a rich tonal range of revelations." -Elin Spring

To read more, please click here.

Gallery News: February 2020

Lee Wormald:  For the past 4 years, I have had the honor and the good fortune to work with Lee Wormald. Lee joined me at the gallery just as he was graduating from Lesley Art + Design. His insights, knowledge, and ability to work under any circumstance!!! and we have had many, have made my job so much easier...definitely more fun. With Lee's help, I have been able to broaden my programing and get twice as much accomplished. It's with total support and celebration that I announce Lee will be relocating to Hollywood...while the Director of the Gallery feels somewhat sad, Arlette, Lee's friend is thrilled that he will have this new opportunity. Lee's last week at the gallery will be the first week of March.

Joining me at the gallery is Evan Perkins, a recent graduate from Mass College of Art & Design. I'm excited to be working with Evan and he promises to dye his hair red if I get too nostalgic!

MFA Boston acquires work from gallery artist, Alicia Rodriguez Alvisa. We are pleased to announce that, Gallery Artist Alicia Rodriguez Alvisa's work from the series You Are There, Are You There? There You Are, has been acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. 

The work is included in Personal Space: Self Portraits on Paper, now on view at the MFA. The exhibition is organized by Karen Haas, Lane Senior Curator of Photographs, and Patrick Murphy, Lia and William Poorvu Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings.

Gallery Artist, Edie Bresler: On Saturday March 7th, in conjunction with the exhibition, Making, Not Taking: Portrait Photography in the 19th Century, the Davis Museum presents a day-long symposium to explore contemporary iterations of nineteenth-century photographic processes. Please join gallery artist, Edie Bresler, at her cyanotype workshop. 

Gallery Artist, Anne Lilly, is included in After Spiritualism: Loss and Transcendence in Contemporary Art, organized by curator Lisa Crossman with Terrana Curatorial Fellow Marjorie Rawle at the Fitchburg Art Museum. The exhibition is on view through June 7th. 

To read more, please click here.

Gallery News: January 2020

Gallery Artist Laura Chasman has multiple paintings in the 35th Annual International Exhibition at the University of Texas at Tyler, from January 21-March 6th, 2020. Chasman's work will also appear in New American Paintings, No. 140, Northeast Issue, juried by Ruth Erickson, curator at the ICA, Boston.

Gallery Artist Yorgos Efthymiadis is included in "Faith in the City", which has been extended through February 9th at the Somerville Museum. 

Gallery Artist Jonathan Gitelson is also participating in the For Freedoms residency at the Currier Museum of Art. This includes two billboards in Manchester, NH as well as a lecture at the Hopkinton Library in NH on February 6.

Joseph Wheelwright – Sticks, Stones & Bones featured in The Boston Globe’s ‘The Ticket‘ by Cate McQuaid

“JOSEPH WHEELWRIGHT (1948-2016): STICKS, STONES & BONES The sculptor, a perennial local favorite, collected nature’s odds and ends on rambles through the woods and assembled what he found into figures and faces, like dryads and wood nymphs. The souls he captured — gawky and graceful, ferocious and serene — conveyed the human spirit, essential and unmasked.” -Cate McQuaid

To read more, please click here.

What Will You Remember Reviews Edie Bresler’s 
The Blues & other possibilities and Yorgos Efthymiadis’s There is a Place I Want to Take You

“I walk into an effusion of Edie Bresler’s blue and white human silhouettes dancing across the gallery walls, wrapped around its corners, floating from the ceiling. In the intimate gallery beyond, Yorgos Efthymiadis’ hushed landscapes mesmerize with formal symmetries bathed in mystery. On the opposite side of the gallery, creatures reincarnated by the late sculptor Joseph Wheelwright prance to life, fashioned from sticks, stones and bones. From the earth to the heavens, Gallery Kayafas reawakens a feeling of connectedness in celebratory and thought-provoking works that offer inspiration during these dark days.” – Elin Spring, WWYR.

To read more, please click here.

Gallery Artist Clara Wainwright’s Quilts will be on view at The Galleries at Boston City Hall

Clara Wainwright is a quilt maker who has had retrospectives at The DeCordova Museum in 2002 and the Cape Ann Museum in 2010.  She has worked with more than 50 community groups, including Raising Our Children’s Children, Southie Survivors, the Tibetan community, Arlington Street Church, Hospice of the North Shore, Wellspring, and Boston Asian – Youth Essential Services. These quilts hang in schools, churches, mosques, temples, health centers, and libraries in Boston, Cambridge, and Gloucester. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, the DeCordova Museum, and the Cape Ann Museum, as well as many corporations and private collections.

To read more, please click here.

Matthew Gamber at Worcester Art Museum

“Matthew Gamber’s photographic practice explores the way meaning is constructed through photography, by isolating and confronting various elements of photography, such as color or light. Gamber created the works in his series This is (Still) the Golden Age by pressing light-sensitive photographic paper against a cathode-ray tube television as it was powering down. In doing so, Gamber captured a residual image as the heat and light of the television subsided. Despite the hazy quality of the images and black edges, indicating the shrinking and fading of the on-screen image, game show props and sitcom actors’ faces remain remarkably present in Gamber’s work. The photographs from This is (Still) the Golden Age create a tangible and permanent record of fleeting images from broadcast programs. Gamber is an Associate Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the College of the Holy Cross.”

Launched in December 2017, CMAI showcases the extraordinary and multi-faceted talents of artists who live or work in the greater Worcester region with a solo installation in the Sidney and Rosalie Rose Gallery. Each year, two artists, invited by one of the Museum’s curators, will display a small grouping of works alongside significant contemporary artists, including Willie Cole, Doris Salcedo, and Alice Neel. The Central Massachusetts Artist Initiative (CMAI) expands the Worcester Art Museum’s ongoing commitment to the vibrant art community throughout the region.

To read more, please click here.

Zoe Perry-Wood Artist Talk at Newport Art Museum

Gallery Artist Zoe Perry-Wood & Lindsay Morris Artist Talk followed by Youth Exploration of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Community Conversation.

“How can we create safe spaces for young people as they explore their feelings related to gender identity and sexual orientation? How can those spaces support inclusivity and encourage mutual respect? Join us for a meaningful community conversation with special guests from the health, education, legal, advocacy, and social arenas, who have made it a priority to support the LGBTQ+ community.”

To read more, please click here.

Kith + Kin: Friends and Mentors of Lesley MFA in Visual Arts

This year, we celebrate our 30th graduating class from the low-residency MFA in Visual Arts program at Lesley Art and Design. In celebration, we are proud to present the exhibition, Kith + Kin: Friends and Mentors of Lesley MFA, an exhibition that highlights the effort and contribution of mentors and visiting artists over the years.

Many of the artists in the show have served as studio mentors to our MFA students across the country. They have all guided student practice over many semesters through conversation and critique. Other featured artists have served as visiting speakers or visiting faculty in our residencies on campus, adding to the larger discourse which surrounds the MFA community.

This exhibition includes gallery artists : Steve Locke,  Christine Collins, Greer Muldowney, 
& Matthew Gamber.

Art In America – Reviews “You Can’t Win: Jack Blacks’ America” at Fortnight Institute, featuring gallery artist Jack Lueders-Booth

“The America of career burglar Jack Black’s 1926 novel You Can’t Win is one of rampant crime, drug use, fugitivity, and punitive justice. For novelist and former New York Times art writer Randy Kennedy, it is also an America discernibly rigged to benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of society’s vulnerable. In other words, Black’s America is in no small part the America of today…

In the images from Jack Lueders-Booth’s “Women Prisoners” series of color photographs, which he took between 1978 and 1985, a period in which the incarceration rate in the United States began to skyrocket, what comes across is a sense of ongoing vitality in the face of deadening circumstances. One image captures a black woman and a white woman snuggled together in solidarity; another features a woman posed on a bed surrounded by everyday objects of survival: photographs, art, books, a stereo.”

This article appears under the title “You Can’t Win: Jack Black’s America” in the October 2019 issue of Art in America, pp. 85-86.

“You Can’t Win: Jack Black’s America” Portrayed a Country Rigged to Benefit the Rich and Powerful —By David Markus

Forever Young @ Newport Art Museum

Forever Young: Representations of Childhood and Adolescence

This exhibition examines portrayals of childhood and youth from the 18th century to the present. Since the dawn of American portraiture, children have been a popular subject for paintings and photographs. Representing children is not only about capturing a likeness, but also about portraying childhood as symbolic of innocence, transition, growth, awakening, mortality, youth, education, and freedom or abandon.

Drawing from the Museum’s permanent collection, this exhibition features works of art by 18th to 20th century American artists, such as George Bellows, Julia Overing Boit, Howard Gardiner Cushing, Charles “Teenie” Harris, Winslow Homer, John LaFarge, Benjamin Curtis Porter, Aaron Siskind, Paul Strand, and Jane Stuart to name a few. It also features works of art in a diverse range of media by contemporary artists from the Museum’s collection and beyond including Julie Blackmon, Jesse Burke, Cynthia Consentino, Jen Corace, Siân Davey, Lucas Foglia, Judy Haberl, Jaclyn Kain, Susan Lapides, Sally Mann, Rania Matar, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Abelardo Morell, Lindsay Morris, Gina Gwen Palacios, Melissa Ann Pinney, Zoe Perry-Wood, Suzanne Révy, Stephen Sheffield, and Maggie Taylor.

Exhibition themes include: family, children at play, emerging identities, childhood constructed, social portraits, children alone, children with animals, and memory/nostalgia. Examining representations of children and adolescents over time, this exhibition celebrates and questions the various ways artists, sitters, and audiences have conceived of youth.

To read more, please click here.

What Will You Remember? Reviews Kimberly Witham’s On Beauty & Emily Belz’s Forward From Where We Came

“Lately, I have been experiencing a serious case of “crisis fatigue.” From the sudden bout of March snowstorms to the unrelenting news cycle, I find myself striving for composure, inspiration, and if at all possible, sunshine. I know I am not alone. As if clairvoyant, Gallery Kayafas is exhibiting two photographers whose distinctive expressions of impermanence offer quietly affecting perspectives on the tumults of life. Kimberly Witham’s “On Beauty” and Emily Belz’s “Forward From Where We Came” will be on view through April 6th, 2019″ -Elin Spring

To read more, please click here.

Gallery News: June 2019

Gallery Artists Tara Sellios and Judy Haberl have won grants through Mass Cultural Council.

Gallery Artists Chosen for PRC’s EXPOSURE 2019!

Juror Mark Alice Durant has selected works by 14 artists to appear in EXPOSURE 2019. The PRC’s annual juried exhibition runs from July 11 through August 11 in Lesley Art + Design’s VanDernoot Gallery, University Hall in Cambridge.

Congratulations to Gallery Artists, Astrid Reischwitz & Judy Haberl, who will be included in the exhibition.

To read more about EXPOSURE 2019, please click here. 

Filter Photo is pleased to present IMPRINTS & ABSTRACTIONS, a three person exhibition featuring the work of Gallery Artist Judy Haberl.

June 7 – July 6, 2019. Artist Talk: June 7, 7:30pm

Location: Filter Space | 1821 W. Hubbard St. Chicago, IL   Ste. 207

Caleb Cole is included in Transmutations at the PRC at Lesley Art + Design. Curated by Sarah Pollman.

May 28 – August 11, 2019. Reception: June 6, 6:30 – 8:30pm

Location: Lower-level Gallery at University Hall, 1815 Mass Ave, Porter Square, Cambridge.

To read more about the exhibition, please click here. 

Zoe Perry Wood is included in What Color…the Rainbow? organized by George Summers.

The exhibition celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement.

On view through June 29, 2019.

Location: Brickbottom Gallery, 1 Fitchburg Street, Somerville, MA.

To read more about the exhibition, please click here.

Gallery News: January 2019

Gallery Artist Yoav Horesh’s Aftermath at Museum of Art at University of New Hampshire.

January 24 – March 30, 2019

Reception: Thursday January 24, 2019 5:00-7:00pm.

For more information regarding the exhibition, please click here.

Peter Kayafas The Spirit of America at Sarah Shepard Gallery.

January 25 – March 2, 2019 / Reception: Friday, February 1st 5:00-8:00pm / 6:30pm Remarks by Peter Kayafas.

“The second exhibition at Sarah Shepard Gallery features the work of New York artists Peter Kayafas & Paul McDonough. The photographs in this exhibition were made across six decades and a dozen states, combining to create a loose catalog of ‘Americaness’, from contemporary, young, male rodeo riders in Montana to 1960s, teenage, hippies in Central Park.”

For more information regarding the exhibition, please click here.

Jack Lueders-Booth Women Prisoners included in Prison Nation at Southeast Museum of Photography.

February 5 – March 4, 2019

Reception: Thursday, February 14th 5:00pm

For more information regarding the exhibition, please click here.

Edie Bresler & Caleb Cole Lost & Found at Garner Center at New England School of Photography.

February 12 – March 15, 2019 / Reception: Thursday, February 19th 6:00-7:30pm

For more information regarding the exhibition, please click here.

Gallery News: November 2018

Gallery Artist Yoav Horesh and Erin Sweeney exhibit, Home And Away, at The Sharon Arts Center.

Artist Talk on Thursday November 15th starting at 5pm. /The exhibition will be on view through December 21st, 2018.

“Where is home, and what defines “Home and Away?” The exhibition explores the familiar and foreign, of belonging and separation, with prints, photographs, and installations.”

Gallery Artist Bruce Myren is included in Crossing Boundaries: Art//Maps at Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, Copley Square.

Mark Feeney writes, “Bruce Myren’s photographic triptych “N 40° 01’ 11.38” W 124° 02’ 48.59” Shelter Cove, California” connects with a set of geographical illustrations from Joseph F. W. Des Barres’s magnificent 18th-century volume “The Atlantic Neptune” because what we see shows a very specific where. With Myren, the acting executive director of the Photographic Resource Center, it’s a bit of West Coast beach. With Des Barres, it’s several portions of Nova Scotia headland.”

To read the full review, please click here.

Gallery Artist Lynn Saville is included in From The Ground Up Curated by the NYFA – New York Foundation for the Arts at Mckinsey & Company, 55 E 52nd St, New York, NY.

The exhibition will be on view through January 30, 2019.

Gallery Artist Ellen Wetmore’s A Capricious Catalogue of Grotesques at Fitchburg Art Museum.

The exhibition will be on view though January 13, 2019.

“Ellen Wetmore’s Grotesques lyrically unite eclectic collections of subjects keenly observed. Wetmore’s contemporary take on the genre is a compilation of her fears, cultural values and observations. A Capricious Catalogue of Grotesques will survey a selection of the themes that she catalogues, ranging from disease, surveillance, to popular culture in drawings produced in 2016.” To read more, please click here.

Caleb Cole’s Ourselves

Gallery Artist Caleb Cole has curated Ourselves - an exhibition of transgender and non-binary artists making work about the trans experience. The exhibition is held at University of Rhode Island, Providence RI.

The exhibition includes : Chai Anstett, Sam Bodian, Ria Brodell, Eli Brown, Caleb Cole, Leah Corbett, Arlo Crateau, Catherine Graffam, Jamezie Helenski, Rob Lorino, Cobi Moules, Lenny Schnier, Austen Shumway, J. Turk, and Creature Karin Webb.

The exhibition will be on view through December 6, 2018.

Gallery News: September/October 2018

We are thrilled to have Gallery Artists Azita Moradkhani and Minoo Emami in Newport Art Museum‘s current exhibition “The Shapes of Birds: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa”

“Borrowing its title from a line in the poem “A Lesson in Drawing” by Syrian writer Nizar Qabbani, “The Shapes of Birds” showcases the work of contemporary artists from, or with roots in, the Middle East and North Africa. Working in sculpture, installation, video, photography, painting,and illustration—the artists in this show both embrace older artistic traditions while exploring new media, ideas, and technologies. As a title, “Shapes of Birds” evokes Qabbani’s poem about memory, loss, disconnection, and creativity. It also speaks to the broader themes of migration—the migration of people and ideas. Though from different countries, and with different stories, the artists in this exhibition create works that deal with identity, history, tradition, memory, and renewal.”

Now on view through December 30, 2018 / To read more, please click here.

Gallery Artist, Greg Heins, is exhibiting ‘Fragments | Recent Photographs’ at the Brookline Public Library. Brookline Public Library, Hunneman Hall (2nd Floor) is open during library hours Monday through Sunday, but may be in use for events. The exhibition will be on view through November 6th.

Trees II: Reviewed by Boston Globe
& What Will You Remember?

Trees are . . . oh, where to begin? They’re like life – they are life – only taller and with leaves. Trees are beautiful. They’re inspiring. They’re ubiquitous. They have near-endless utility: shade, firewood, paper, plywood, clapboards.

You get the idea.

Trees are also great to look at, which is one of the things that make “Trees II” a pleasure. The show runs at Gallery Kayafas through July 28. The gallery’s first exhibition of tree images, in 2006, consisted solely of photographs. More than a fifth of the 57 works in the new show are in other media: sculpture, painting, etching,…

To read more, please click here.

What Will You Remember: Trees, Please!

“Can you imagine a world without trees? Try for a second to picture that. Now banish the thought, because Gallery Kayafas has just mounted a large, multi-media group exhibit (predominantly photographs, though) that expresses the profound physical and psychological impact of trees on our lives. Trees II is exceptional not only for the beauty of individual pieces but for the multitude of imaginative interpretations and techniques celebrating these earthly treasures. The show will be on view through July 28th, 2018, with an Artists’ Reception on First Friday, July 6th, 2018 from 5:30 – 8:30pm.”

To read more, please click here.

Recently Pop-Up // Jack Lueders-Booth in Harvard Magazine

“Quick! There’s a pop-up exhibit at Gallery Kayafas in Boston’s SoWa arts district through Wednesday, April 25th, 2018. It is the premier showing for the Recently Collective, a group of twelve Boston-based emerging artists working in photography, mixed media, painting, and installation (with a strong emphasis on photography). I love the sparks that fly in a collective, pushing and fostering conversation and critique, elevating the work of individual artists as they engage with each other – and now us.” – Elin Spring of What Will You Remember?

To read more, please click here.

“Visting Hours – Portraits of the imprisoned, Seen Anew,” by Olivia Schwob for Harvard Magazine was recently published.

“For seven years, Jack Lueders-Booth (above, left) visited the Massachusetts Correctional Institution-Framingham to teach a photography workshop several days each month. Roaming the grounds, he took women prisoners’ portraits with Polaroid, Leica, and medium-format film cameras, documenting scenes from daily life.”

To read more, please click here.

What Will You Remember reviews our current exhibitions: Serene Oasis & A Golden State

“Expectations are unavoidable, and like a double-edged sword, they instigate both disillusionments and inspiration. This dichotomy is explored in two outwardly different solo exhibitions: Yoav Horesh in Serene Oasis and Shawn Bush in A Golden State cut to the heart of our human desire for a promised land, that elusive location of hopes and dreams.” – Elin Spring

To read more, please click here.

Gallery Artists’ Caleb Cole & Zoe Perry-Wood
in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston: 
(un)expected families exhibition!

“Bringing together more than 80 pictures taken by American photographers from the 19th century to today, “(un)expected families” explores the definition of the American family—from the families we are born into to the ones we have chosen for ourselves. The works on view depict a wide range of relationships, including multiple generations, romantic unions, and alternative family structures. Using archival, vernacular, and fine art photographs, “(un)expected families” offers a variety of perspectives on the American family…” - MFA Boston

To read more, please click here.

Jack Lueders-Booth’s Women Prisoners series, featured in Aperture’s new issue ‘Prison Nation’

“Most prisons and jails across the United States do not allow prisoners to have access to cameras. At a moment when 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the US, 3.8 million people are on probation, and 870,000 former prisoners are on parole, how can images tell the story of mass incarceration when the imprisoned don’t have control over their own representation? Organized with the scholar Nicole R. Fleetwood, an expert on art’s relation to incarceration, the Spring issue of Aperture magazine addresses the unique role photography plays in creating a visual record of a national crisis.”