‘Grief and love within the frame’
“Through the dahlias, backyard, Auburndale’’ (archival digital print), by Mary Lang, in her show “Farandnear,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, June 1-26. She lives in Auburndale, part of Newton.
The gallery says:
“Mary Lang is known for her large scale, evocative color photographs, and for the groundless feeling of space held within the frame. These new images in ‘Farandnear’ hold space differently, encompassing both near and far in composition and focus. We often feel like we are looking past or through a screen or veil. There is a complexity in the details that both draw the viewer in and at the same time hold us back. Similarly for Lang, the climate crisis feels both far -- in that we can’t fully comprehend the most horrific events yet to come, so we push them away — and unbelievably near, in that mere observation of ice on the Charles River or plants in the garden tell us what is happening before our eyes.
“The exhibition is titled “Farandnear’’ after a Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations property in Shirley, an historic summer home aptly named because it was ‘far’ enough to require a two-day journey by horse to reach, but ‘near’ enough to be a vacation home. Lang’s camera records wild beaver swamps and ordinary urban patches of weeds, as well as images of her garden, in equal measure. The images are lush with growth; even in winter the earth offers an abundance. She says: ‘For me there is no distinction between the beauty of the untouched landscapes or the ones we often overlook because they are ubiquitous. It’s a matter of paying attention. They all hold both grief and love within the frame’’’
Old Shirley Town Hall
Shirley Shaker Village in 1884
The Turtle Lane Playhouse, in Auburndale
The joy and pathos of life
“Garden hose and deck, Ryegate VT, July, 2019” (archival digital print) in Mary Lang’s show “Small Moments of Sad-Joy,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, Dec. 8-Jan. 17.
The gallery says:
“Mary Lang reflects on the Japanese phrase ‘Mono no Aware,’ the pathos of things, in her newest collection of photographs. A garden hose draped over a railing, a field of Queen Anne’s lace at dusk, the arc of a sprinkler all speak to the entrenched feeling of wistful sadness. That fundamental reality builds its foundation on uncertainty. These photographs are not from distant or grandiose places but show quiet, fleeting moments in her backyard, around the corner from her house, and at friends’ yards in Upstate New York and Vermont. Lang borrows the term ‘sad-joy’ from Chӧgyam Trungpa, to describe the joy of being alive while still in touch with the suffering and impermanence of the world. In this exhibition, Lang asks the viewer to consider, feel, and marvel at the pathos of things.’’
A river realm
“Spider web, Rail Trail between Northampton and Hadley, Mass.’’ {on the Connecticut River} (archival digital print), by Mary Lang , in her show “Here, nowhere else,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, Sept. 4-29.
She says of her show:
“Each one of these photographs could be a doorway into a separate realm. They are single perceptions, clear and vivid, like waking from a dream, finding yourself Here, nowhere else. Like the turning of a kaleidoscope, for a moment time stops, everything falls into place and I am part of the invisible pattern that holds the world together. Though standing on the earth, it still feels groundless. For so many years I photographed water as a way of exploring groundlessness. It turns out that photographing earth is groundless as well.
“The world is inundated with photographs; 100 million and counting are uploaded to Instagram every day, visual records of a place or a time, a vacation or a hike. These photographs are those as well, but what makes this one, and not that one, rise above so many others, to hang on the wall in a frame, is because captured within the photograph is a sense of presence, of this moment, here, nowhere else, an absorption into vastness that some would call magic.’’
Looking north up the Connecticut River from the French King Bridge, at the Erving-Gill town line in western Massachusetts. Too many New Englanders don’t realize that the Connecticut is one of the world’s most beautiful rivers.
“If the river is as varied and beautiful as the Connecticut, you can merely look at it – in the long light of a sultry summer evening, under an angry winter sky, in the high color of autumn or the pastel shades of spring – and derive that sense of peace and uplift of the spirit that most men find in living water.’’
-- Roger Tory Peterson (1908-1996, artist and naturalist), in The Connecticut River, by Evan Hill (1972)
Eerie Earth
"Leaving PDX'' (archival pigment print), by Mary Lang, in her show "Wonderland: Landscape Photographs by Mary Lang, at the Kingston Gallery, through May 28. (PDX refers to Portland, Oregon's airport). Remember when flying was glamorous?
'Relay'
From top, "Compliments'' (fabric, acrylic medium/pigment, handprinted rice paper), by Erica Licea-Kane; "Miniature World, Victoria, BC'' (archival pigment print), by Mary Lang; "Release'' (acrylic on panel), by Lynda Schlosberg, in the group show "Relay'' at Kingston Gallery, Boston, Jan. 4-29.