PUTNEY — The Putney Public Library invites everyone to view photographs by Brent Seabrook on exhibit through Sept. 28, during library hours and special events, free and open to the public.
The focus of the exhibition is farm work, farm workers, and the workplace itself. Brent Seabrook says he “wants to make a photograph that shows the viewer both a recognizable activity or scene and the psychological depth of the relationship between the subject and the setting.”
His large color photographs depict unusual scenes from angles that reflect his desire to expand the meaning of the image.
Wrapped hay bales surround a tree in the midst of a field, brush piles crowd the frame in an almost menacing way, and two large wheels of cheese sit on a shelf like monuments. Several portraits of farm workers reveal both an intense concentration and an abstracted inner dialogue.
Seabrook's personal Vermont Farm Work Project began after he graduated as a studio art major from Middlebury College in 1971. Working in an orchard, he began photographing every day, all day, all aspects of work and people. He realized that this was his medium, and he became a photographer.
He now lives in Marlboro and continues to work at Green Mountain Orchard in Putney. He has exhibited his photographs at the Catamount Arts Center in St. Johnsbury and the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro. To learn more, visit brentseabrookphotography.com.
Putney Public Library is located at 55 Main St in Putney and is open Monday through Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.