Building a Lineage: January 6-29, 2017

Boston, Massachusetts – Building a Lineage: Photography by Tara Butler, Allison Cekala, Jodie Mim Goodnough, Defne Kirmizi, Molly Lamb, Sarah Pollman, and Sadie Wechsler, will be on display at the Piano Craft Gallery January 6-29, 2017, with an opening reception on Saturday, January 7, from 6:00-8:30 p.m. History is built through rhizomatic connections fostered between peers, teachers, colleagues, and friends. Building a Lineage explores these connections through a case study of seven photographers. Formal connections reveal influences as much as conceptual connections reveal the emotional tenures of friendships. The process of influence is organic; it is impossible to separate out who is a teacher, a friend, or a colleague. Tara Butler’s curiosity and fascination with the natural world originated in south Florida where she grew up. After four years in Boston studying photography and writing at Emerson college, she moved to Colorado to follow photographic landscape pursuits. Observation and reaction to the wild outdoors are prominent influences on her work. Allison Cekala is a Boston-based visual artist and educator working primarily in photography and film. Her work investigates the ways in which humans move, shape, and transform their surroundings. Cekala holds a BA from Bard College in Photography and Environmental Studies and an MFA from Tufts University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Museum of Science and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, as well the American Film Institute, and reviewed in the Boston Globe, WBUR's Artery, and NPR's The World, among others.  Her film, Fundir, won best short documentary film at the Lisbon International Film Festival in 2016. Jodie Mim Goodnough is a Providence-based artist whose work revolves around the use of images in psychology and psychiatry, including photography, sculpture, performance, video, and sound. She attended the photojournalism program at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine, and received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University. Her work has shown at the Midwest Center for Photography, Small Space Fest in Las Vegas, Nevada, and at Spring/Break Art Fair in New York City, among others, and has been reviewed in Art New England and the Boston Globe. Goodnough is currently on the faculty at Salve Regina University in Newport, RI. Defne Kirmizi, based in Ankara, Turkey, resides in Boston and continues her PhD studies with the History of Art and Architecture Department at Boston University. She received her BA in Psychology and MA in Media and Visual Studies from Bilkent University, Ankara, and her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, concentrating on photography. By way of her photography studies at SMFA she has integrated her background in psychology, visual studies, and art theory into her artistic practice. She is at work on a photography series that explores the changing nature of cinema and filmic experience by documenting the transition from 35mm projection systems to digital projection. Molly Lamb holds an MFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited at Rick Wester Fine Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Danforth Art Museum, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Houston Center for Photography, and the Center for Fine Art Photography. In 2015, she was named one of Photo District News’ 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch, one of LensCulture’s 50 Emerging Talents, awarded an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, was a Critical Mass finalist, and a finalist for the New Orleans Photo Alliance’s Clarence John Laughlin Award. She is represented by Rick Wester Fine Art in New York. Sarah Pollman holds a BFA and MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tufts University. She is a 2013 recipient of the Art Writing Workshop from the AICA-USA and Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program and a 2014 Curatorial Opportunity Program curator at the New Art Center in Newton. Recent exhibits include a solo show at the Danforth Art Museum and group shows at Sanlang Art Dimension in Hangzhou, China, the Rourke Art Museum, and The Open Aperture Gallery. Pollman is member of the faculty at Tufts University, Emerson College, Montserrat College of Art, and the New Hampshire Institute of Art. Sadie Wechsler resides in Seattle, WA. Her work questions a static landscape and replaces it with one that blurs imagined, historical, and rational states. She received a BA from Bard College with a focus in Photography and an MFA from Yale University School of Art in Photography. Her work has shown in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dublin, and across the U.S. She was a runner-up for the Aperture Prize and the Betty Bowen Awards, and she took part in the Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard, Norway. In Fall of 2016 she will be a resident at Anderson Ranch in Colorado. Her work is in the collection of the Yale University Library and the Hammer Art Museum. The exhibition Building a Lineage, open to the public and free, will be open throughout January on Fridays from 6:00-8:00 p.m., on Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00-5:00 p.m., and by appointment at the Piano Craft Gallery, a historic Boston landmark at 793 Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts. The Piano Craft Gallery is dedicated to offering thought-provoking and engaging exhibitions. For more information about the exhibition and the Piano Craft Gallery, visit www.pianocraftgallery.com or www.facebook.com/gallerypf.