Henry Horenstein: Animalia

Exhibitions

February 18 - March 20, 2016

New Bedford born photographer presents a series of evocative and mysterious black and white photographs of land and sea creatures

Reception: Thursday, Mar 3, 6 - 8 PM, Artist Talk and Booksigning at 7 pm

New Bedford born photographer Henry Horenstein presents a series of evocative and mysterious black and white photographs of land and sea creatures, Animalia, at the University Art Gallery from February 18 through March 20. The reception is on March 3, from 6 to 8 pm, with the artist talk and book signing at 7 pm.

This series of images, taken at different zoos and aquariums, was created between 1995 and 2001. It presents various shapes, details and patterns of animals separated from their surrounding context to enable viewers to experience the purity of their forms and appreciate their intricate and surprising visual elements. As Elizabeth Werby, Executive Director of The Harvard Museum of Natural History wrote in the forward to Henry Horenstein’s book Animalia (Pond Press, 2008), “...these pictures challenge us to look more closely, to ask questions and make connections. We think about form and function: the relationship between an elephant’s foot, a horse’s hoof, and our own toes. We ponder modes of sensing and communication: The signals that hold together a school of fish. Examining these photographs, we become scientists and discoverers."

Continuing in the tradition of his teachers, Harry Callahan's and Aaron Siskin's black and white photography, Horenstein says: “I choose to look closely and abstractly—to see my subjects for their inherent beauty, oddness, mystery. For this, I shot often with macro lenses, so I could get close, and worked with grainy, black-and-white films, printed in sepia, hoping to give them an old school, timeless feel.”

Henry Horenstein has been a professional photographer, teacher, and author since the 1970s. He studied history at the University of Chicago and earned his BFA and MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he is now professor of photography. Henry's work is collected and exhibited internationally. He has published over 30 books, including Black & White Photography: A Basic Manual, and Digital Photography: A Basic Manual, used by hundreds of thousands of college, university, high-school, and art-school students as their introduction to photography. He has also published several monographs of his own work, including Show, Honky Tonk, Animalia, Humans, Racing Days, Close Relations, and many others. Horenstein lives in Boston and is a professor of photography at Rhode Island School of Design.

For more information about the artist: www.horenstein.com

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