
“Pyrotechnic #65, 2013” from the series Pyrotechnic, archival pigment print by Jim Nickelson (courtesy of the artist)
For the past 5 years, the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Photographic Resource Center (PRC) have jointly conducted the New England Portfolio Reviews (NEPR), offering local artists the opportunity to have their work reviewed by image professionals like curators and gallerists and a chance to participate in the “portfolio walk” exhibition. From the 54 who participated in both events this past June, the Griffin and PRC chose 6 artists whose work demonstrates “diverse and inventive approaches to photography”, to appear in the “NEPR Showcase” now on view at the PRC in Boston. On Thursday December 5th, 6:00pm – 7:30pm, there will be a reception with the artists at the PRC; the show runs through December 20, 2013.

“Watching, 2013” from the series A Sensed Presence, digital print by Danielle Ashley Burke (courtesy of the artist)
Although the show features work utilizing a variety techniques and subject matter, I was struck by the way all six artists attempted to make visible the unseen, or imagined. Likewise, a powerful emotional or spiritual connection is apparent in each photographer’s work.

“July 19, 2012”, from the series Regarding Beauty: Notes on Turning 60, archival inkjet print by Moira Barrett (courtesy of the artist)
In “Regarding Beauty: Notes on Turning 60”, Moira Barrett plunged into a systematic year-long exploration of beauty and mortality in her sometimes humorous, often touching and always thought-provoking color diptychs, pairing a self-portrait with some other object. While leaving us to ponder the visual and psychological parallels, she peppers herself with probing questions like, “Does the self change as the body ages or is it immutable?” and “Do you at last know what beauty is?” Barrett’s engaging experiments tantalize both visual perception and emotional intellect.

“Taunting, 2013”, from the series A Sensed Presence, digital print by Danielle Ashley Burke (courtesy of the artist)
In “A Sensed Presence”, Danielle Ashley Burke staged recreations of encounters she has experienced as a result of her “6th Sense” – the ability to see spirits – something that has caused her great fear. Her moody, selectively-focused B&W photographs symbolize how the events affected her emotionally, offering the artist catharsis and the viewer a journey into her world.

“Wallportrait Taryn, 2013” from the series Wallportraits, archival pigment print by Bear Kirkpatrick (courtesy of the artist)
In “Wall Portraits”, Bear Kirkpatrick similarly tries “to force the unseen to make itself present” in his large, fantastical, color portraits. In them, women forced to cover their hair in an act of religious repression, are revealed to harbor fugitive alter-egos that express a spiritual will against their repressors through a range of symbolic elements, from bizarrely plastered and feathered skin, to wild animals depicted on head scarves and in Kirkpatrick’s ethereal backdrops.

“Light Memory #2, 2004-2006” from the series Light Memory, archival sepia-toned gelatin silver fibre base print by Jo Sandman (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas)
In “Light Memory”, Jo Sandman has sought to imbue her images of X-rays with “an emotional life, to bring depth and humanity to the individual”. Her series of warm, sepia-toned body parts, like the hand or head, and her more expansive images, like the twin torsos or twin fetuses, naturally suggest mortality and provoke the imagination in Sandman’s “meditations on morality and the human condition”.

In “Palimpsest”, David Weinberg manifested his fascination with ancient manuscripts, religious icon paintings and the super-natural in his composite prints of digitally manipulated photographs combined with drawings, text and images of medieval manuscripts. Implying both death and rebirth, many of Weinberg’s prints feature biological-looking bodies, each seemingly encasing seeds or genetic material, against aged parchment paper backgrounds. These convey his “attempt to deal with the mystery of the visual world” and his “desire to discover a spiritual connection to the subject”.
In “Pyrotechnic”, Jim Nickelson explored how the celebratory displays of fireworks recall many aspects of the natural world in their most rudimentary form. His stunning B&W prints extract the delicacy of natural forms like flowers, sea grasses and the wings of birds, uniting intricate linear elements with striking shapes and powerful compositions, in a kind of spiritual shape-shifting into pyrotechnics.