Past Exhibit
Stella Johnson - Al Sol
March 20 - June 15, 2008
Photographer Searches for Universal Experience
85 Avenue A at Third Street - Downtown Turners Falls, Massachusetts
Stella Johnson's exhibit "AL SOL", with its gently revealing black and white images from rural Mexico, Nicaragua and Africa, opens March 20, 2008, at Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography. Johnson, a Fulbright Scholar, whose ongoing search for a universality of the human experience, has dedicated nearly twenty years to documenting the lives of families in rural Mexico, Nicaragua and the Cameroons, West Africa. She has also worked on photographic projects with the minority Garifuna and Miskito Indian Cultures of Central America. "AL SOL" continues at the museum's Gallery 85, in Turners Falls, Massachusetts through June 15, 2008.An Artist's Reception with live music and hors d'oeuvres will be held at Gallery 85 from 1-5 p.m. on Saturday, April 26. The museum will be open extra hours on this date until 7 p.m. An Illustrated Artist's Talk by Johnson will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at the Hallmark Institute of Photography Educational Center, 27 Industrial Boulevard, Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Doors open at 6:45 p.m.; refreshments from 6:45 to 7:15 p.m.; seating begins at 7:15 p.m. Ms. Johnson will sign copies of her book, "AL SOL", following the Talk, at 8:30 p.m.
An intent, focused gaze informs Johnson's work, which follows the lives she has been given leave to capture, whether it be families at rest, at play, washing, swimming or thoroughly involved with each other, all the while seemingly unaware of the camerawoman.
"These photographs reflect the collective human experience in the ordinary moments of daily life in Mexico, Cameroon and Nicaragua. My intention is to transcend those moments, elevating them into universal social landscapes" Johnson writes.
Johnson trained in photography at The San Francisco Art Institute, and received her Master's degree in journalism from Boston University College of Communication. She is based out of Boston, Massachusetts.
A Fulbright Scholar to Mexico (2003-2004) Johnson photographed and supervised photography on the "Intangible Heritage of Mexico" project with anthropologist Lourdes Arizpe; in 2006, as a Fulbright Senior Specialist to Mexico, Johnson taught documentary photography and visual anthropology at the Regional Center for Multidisciplinary Research of the National University of Mexico, Cuernavaca, Morelos. In early 2008 Johnson received a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant to photograph in Ecuador.
Other honors the artist has received are a grant from the Music and Art Foundation, Vaduz, Liechenstein to publish the monograph "AL SOL", in conjunction with the University of Maine Press and University of Maine Museum of Art, and, the New England Foundation for the Arts, Cultural Collaborative Artist-in-Residence grant.
Johnson's work has been published in Time, Fortune, Parenting, US News and World Report, and Yankee magazines. In a diversity of projects that span the globe, Johnson has been commissioned to create documentary photographs for the Ford Foundation, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and the Inter American Foundation, and has twice served as an Earthwatch Institute participant to Paraguay and Cameroon.
Johnson has exhibited her work widely in the United States and internationally, including a permanent exhibit in Djohong, Cameroon. "AL SOL" will travel to the University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine, for exhibition July 17 to October 4, 2008.