October 24, 2014 – March 21, 2015

Photographs by Women is a selection of works added to the collection since 2010. The artists include Kristin Capp (New York), Donna Ferrato (New York), Denise Froehlich (Portland, Maine), Sally Gall (New York), Irina Ionesco (Paris), Susan Moldenhauer (Wyoming), and Claire Seidl (New York and Rangeley, Maine). The artists in this exhibition represent a variety of subjects and interests, and each has been working for years. The work presented here focuses on selections from one series by each artist, all in black and white.

Kristin Capp’s sensitive photographs are from an extensive body of work that focus on members
of several Hutterite communities (a religious sect rooted in 16the century Protestantism) in eastern Washington State and Saskatchewan, Canada. The gritty street photography of Donna Ferrato chronicles the people, places, and captured moments in the life of lower Manhattan, and particularly the TriBeCa neighborhood, as it transforms in recent years. Denise Froehlich’s male nudes are from the Pathos of Eros series, a compelling recent body of work in which she explores her thoughts on virility, ageing, and beauty in square format and composite panoramic images. Sally Gall’s atmospheric photographs are from Swimmers, one of many series in which she immerses viewers in a visceral and sensual contemplation of nature and our place within it. A former circus girl and cabaret dancer, Irena Ionesco is described as a gothic icon and grande dame of erotica. Sometimes using her daughter as a model, she photographs women in theatrical poses, wearing lace and fetishistic props. Susan Moldenhauer creates performative fabric-draped portraits of women, often using herself as the subject, that place the solitary figure in motion within the expansive high plains and under the sweeping skies of Eastern Wyoming. Claire Seidl’s long-exposure nocturnal images often take place in domestic interiors, where she captures furniture and other details, which are interspersed with voids of inky black space and inhabited by moving figures and their apparitions.

A number of the photographs in the exhibition have been generously donated to the Museum of Art. On behalf of the museum, Bates and the campus and regional communities, we offer our sincere thanks to: Henry Daas, Charles Dorkey III, Ronald Francesco, Denise Froehlich, Francis McIntyre, Brad Olson, Kathleen Quinn, Allison Scollar, and Andres A. Verzosa and David G. Whaples.

Curated by Dan Mills

Photographs by Women Gallery Guide