BRATTLEBORO — The Vermont Center for Photography presents “Daydreamers & Night Wanderers,” a two-woman exhibition of photographs by Kirsten Hoving and Emma Powell, who also happen to be mother and daughter.
The exhibition features work from a series by each artist: Powell's large-scale, toned cyanotypes from her series, “The Shadow Catcher's Daughter,” and Hoving's archival digital prints from her series, “Night Wanderers.”
The exhibition runs through Feb. 24 on Fridays and Saturdays from 1 to 6 p.m., and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The gallery is at 49 Flat St. next to the Transportation Center.
Although the photographers' works differ from each other strikingly, “Daydreamers & Night Wanderers” is linked by the artists' shared interest in photo history, surreal imagery, implied narrative, and symbolic objects.
Neither artist, however, claims to be particularly influenced by the other. Hoving suggests that if there is any influence it was she who was more inspired by her daughter than the other way around. But then, Powell did get there first.
Hoving, a professor at Middlebury College, teaches and writes about modern art and the history of photography. Although long interested in the art of photography and even having dabbled in photography earlier in life, Hoving turned to making photographs herself in a significant way only after the younger of her two daughters left for college. Only in the past eight years has she been making and exhibiting her work.
Powell, on the other hand, took up the camera in a serious way long before her mother did. She is visiting artist and lecturer at Iowa State University and her work has been shown in a variety of one-person and group exhibitions throughout the country.
In the past two and a half years, she's been working on her most recent series of photographs, “The Shadow Catcher's Daughter,” which she describes as “self portraits mixed with fantasy.”
Powell writes that “the photographs in the series, 'The Shadow Catcher's Daughter,' balance on the fine line between reality and the dream. I use self-portraiture to articulate personal narratives, which are often both nightmare and fantasy. Human, animal, and environmental forms interact in unexpected ways to symbolize discoveries and conflicts in my intimate relationships.”
To get the often otherworldly effects she achieves in her photos, Powell uses a process of film development called “cyanotype.” Cyanotype is an old monochrome photographic printing process discovered in 1842 that gives a cyan-blue print.
Powell writes, “I use the cyanotype process to suggest an alternative space, such as a dream or memory. These images are toned with tea and wine to produce a range of additional warmer tones, making them seem more natural. I choose these substances for the acidic effect on the chemistry, as well as their influence on communication and memory. Although photography is normally considered a medium that represents the present, visible world, in my work I attempt to make visual what cannot be seen in place or time.”
Her mother is not as much interested in dreams as outer space.
As Hoving puts it, “'Night Wanderers' is a series of photographs envisioning the cosmos. I photograph objects and 19th century photographs frozen in or placed under disks of ice to create the feeling of galactic swirls of stars, galaxies and spiral nebulae.”
Hoving claims that for this series of photographs she was not influenced by the work of other photographers, but rather by the collage and assemblage art of American artist Joseph Cornell.
“In the course of writing an art historical book on the artist, 'Joseph Cornell and Astronomy: A Case for the Stars,' (2008) I became aware of the artist's deep and abiding interest in astronomy,” she says. “I also came to understand his creative process, which involved juxtaposing objects in often unexpected ways. His working method encouraged me to take risks, to experiment, and to be willing to destroy one object to create another. He also taught me to appreciate the stars.”
Hoving uses ice as a still life object to achieve some of her amazing effects.
“I partially thaw the ice to create transparent and translucent areas, then work quickly to photograph it,” she says. “While I choose objects and photographs that recall earlier times (an outdated globe, old cartes de visite) to help remind us that starlight is old light, the ice that encases them underscores the elegance and fragility of our place in the universe.”
Powell says that she has turned to older processes of photographic development as a means to find her artistic self.
“Photography has always been part of my life,” she says. “Besides my mother, my father is also also a photographer, and together they run Photoplace Gallery in Middlebury. My father took me to India at 15 and trained me with a camera, which I date as my beginning as a photographer.
Nonetheless, I felt I had no voice of my own until I began using historical processes like cyanotype or tintype.”
Hoving often describes her relationship with her daughter as “collaborative.” She considers that they are two photographers discovering their way. “We communicate to each other about our work all the time,” she says.
“While our work is not really much alike,” says Powell, “we do find it interesting that we explore complementary ideas and themes.”
Pieces by Hoving and Powell have been spotted together in other venues, but “Daydreamers & Night Wanderers” at Vermont Center for Photography is the first exhibition solely devoted to the photographs of mother and daughter.
“Emma and I work to maintain separate identities,” says Hoving, “but I am thrilled how well our works went together at the show.”