Close to the Land

July 1- August 1, 2010

Reception: Saturday, July 10, 4:30-6pm

Gwen Lewis specializes in black and white documentary photography, including landscapes, architecture, and people. She is especially fascinated by pattern, texture, the geometry of design elements, and the compression of space. Gwen is one of a few remaining photographers committed to the use of film and darkroom techniques to create archival, silver gelatin prints.

Gwen’s handmade prints have been in over 100 exhibits, including several solo shows. Her awards include a First in Show and an Honorable Mention at the Campagna Center, an Honorable Mention from the Art League, and 2nd place at the Friendship Heights Center. Her photographs illustrate several books and CD covers, including the RRUUC choir’s 2007 recording of "Requiem" by Clif Hardin.

Close to the Land is about the life and death of rural communities. Over the past 10 years, Gwen has taken photographs while traveling to and through many rural communities to see family, enjoy nature, buy produce, and trace ancestors. She has been struck by the vitality as well as poverty of these places, some of which once were home. The vitality shows in the resilience of the people. The poverty appears in the deterioration and abandonment of factories, fields, barns, and homes. She senses a growing divide between urban life and the lives of people who still live close to the land, even while cities expand outward to encompass that land. She appreciates this opportunity to show images that document some activities of people and places closer to the land than we are.

You may visit her website at http://mysite.verizon.net/montlewis/.