Trinity’s Juried Show Exhibits New and Familiar Talents

A group devoted to mounting all-photo exhibits from all kinds of photographers opened its first show last weekend at Lime Rock Trinity Church’s art gallery. It was juried by photographer and teacher Michael Yurgeles of Torrington, CT, who winnowed entries to a manageable group that contains more black-and-white than color images. The photos are hung in groupings that share subjects or styles, so that the show has a logical flow, unusual in many local exhibitions.

   Yurgeles emphasized technical skill and presentation values in his judging. But he also looked for compositions that incorporated design principles to complement the subject and concept. It is fun to keep these criteria in mind when looking at the pictures and making your own assessment.

First-prize winner Victoria Beller-Smith’s “Smoky and Shorty are Here” is a slice-of-life moment from New York’s Upper West Side. The iconic White Cup Food Shop anchors the image on the right corner of a row of brownstone buildings. People look and lean out of second-floor windows, while a woman and her young daughter cross the street. There is a symmetry to the composition, an energy to the image. 

Abby Ripley’s second-place photo, “Five Horse Power,” is a pale, moody image that juxtaposes five horses on an old car’s grill and hood. One can read it as a comment on so many things: progress, mechanization, transient manmade beauty versus natural. It is beautifully made and haunting.

“Call Me, Georgia, Honey” won third prize for Barry Andrew Collins. The color image has a flat affect, like a Will Barnet print, and a strong vertical pull. Business cards are stuck into molding on the left, a torn reminder note is on the right. Colors are primary. It is a masterly little arranged composition.

The people’s choice award, sponsored by Artwell in Torrington, was won by Truss Teeuwissen for “Nautilus III,” a gorgeous image of the interior of a perfect nautilus shell, its intricacy reproduced in a lustrous ivory tint. 

Two photos from digitizing film images come from Jeffrey Breitman and Christopher Lee. Breitman photographed a broken stone statue at Battle Hill Forge in Millerton, NY. The figure, “Battle Forge God,” fills the left of the picture against a background of winter snow. Lee’s “Tulip Tree – Litchfield” shows the tree, already dropping its flowers, in such detailed relief that it is almost three-dimensional.

Stephen Potter shows “Backyard, Freehold, 2004,” a flat, carefully composed image of a pitched roof perfectly reflected, upside down, in the water of a swimming pool. His “2006 Car Show” poses two young men crouching beside a long, 1960s car they have renewed with red paint and licks of multicolored flames. Their pride is palpable.

Barbara Soares and Jim Stasiak, husband and wife, entered two large pictures, “Meditation on Water 3 and 6,” both printed on aluminum, that specialized process that gives images the expected metallic sheen as well as contradictory feelings of lightness and permanence. Number 3 is a swirl of blues and reds rendered in a haze or fog; number 6 looks like a closeup of squares in a sisal rug. It is all yellow-brown mystery. Joseph Gaylor’s “Katz’s Deli NYC” is a vividly colored image of the famous Jewish deli on Houston Street, with yellow cabs in front and upbeat people on the street. It is full of energy.

Marsden Epworth combines her meticulous, black-and-white technique with her love of words and double entendres. “Stem Cell Transfer” shows a goose egg bearing a pear stem next to a dark, wrinkled stemless pear rapidly deteriorating, and in another image, large blossoms fill the left of the picture plane in “Sex Pistils,” an homage to Georgia O’Keeffe one assumes. Caitlin Hanlon, a recent college graduate and the youngest exhibitor, shows promise with “Dining Room,” a tightly composed image in black and white that speaks of family and routine and even, perhaps, how both constrict us.

The Juried Photography Show at Trinity Church, 484 Lime Rock Road in Lakeville, CT, will be open July 31 and Aug. 1 from noon to 4 p.m.