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Originally
from Lowell, Massachusetts, Sweeney moved back to the Boston area
this past spring. Sweeney received her BA in Film and Cultural
Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1991)
and her MFA in photography from SUNY, College at New Paltz (1996).
For a rising artist, Sweeney's work has been exhibited and published
widely. Her work is included in several permanent collections,
including the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
Collection at the University of Texas, Austin. Her work has also
been featured at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, Houston
Center for Photography, Soho Photo, and the Print Center in Philadelphia.
She has also twice been named to the Maine Photographic Workshops
Golden Light Top 100 photographers. Recently, she had her second
solo show at New York's Yossi Milo gallery in Spring 2003, and
in 2002, she exhibited at Houston's Fotofest, and Portugal's Encontros
da Imagem. This July, a series of her work was included in a book,
Masquerade-Women's Contemporary Portrait Photography, published
by Ffotogallery, Wales, 2003.
The
c-prints featured here are some of her most recent responses,
taken in and around the Boston area this summer. Sweeney frequents
gathering areas, such as parks and beaches in Roslindale and Revere,
for subjects. Although the result of chance encounters (also the
title of her on-going series), Sweeney's method and images differ
from that of traditional street photography. She explains, "I'm
still sometimes amazed at people's openness to being photographed.
I'm always interested in the persona that they present to the
camera and the subtleties that can be captured." Her portraits
often single out the sitter, isolated by depth of field or simple
setting. A seemingly small element-a gesture or intense gaze captured-serves
to make her glimpses into humanity poignantly universal. The result
becomes almost a collaboration, however brief, between seer and
seen.
To
view more of Sweeney's work, visit www.yossimilogallery.com
and www.nymphoto.com
www.marlasweeney.com
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PAST PRESENTATIONS
Click here for more information
about the Northeast Exposure. |
CURRENT
PROJECT
|| Chance
Encounters
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These
are photographs of people as I find them. They explore
the tension between our personal and public selves, addressing
our ideas about ourselves as a people and a culture. The
commonplace and the ordinary are in these images; there
is also a sense of loneliness and isolation. Within them,
the viewer can find religion, humor, vanity, ambiguity
and humanity. The environments the subjects inhabit are
at once private spaces and public stages. There is a beauty
in these common places that is both familiar and uneasy.
I
took these photographs in different American towns, small
and large, rural and suburban. I have brought my camera
to neighborhoods and vacation colonies, to flea markets,
beaches and parades. Each of these environments is unique,
yet they share common elements. The houses and front porches,
the yards and gardens all reflect the expectations and
personalities of the people within. American culture provides
a background for the images. Seeing people and their homes,
I have tried to photograph moments, which convey a sense
of a place and of an age.
A
portrait, for me, is the outcome of quiet observation
and awareness of expressions, gestures, and subtleties.
I try to convey the subjects' weight and authenticity.
The people in these images are not staged; the photographs
are points where my way of seeing and the way people present
themselves to me overlap. Henri Cartier Bresson said that
the camera can be "a weapon, a psychoanalytical couch,
or a warm kiss." To me photography is a combination of
all three - confrontation, psychology and intimacy. A
portrait is as much about the photographer as it is about
the subject. I believe that you see yourself most clearly
when you see yourself as a stranger.
-Marla
Sweeney
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Buddha
Boy, 2003
C-print, 18 x 18 inches,
Courtesy of the artist |
Marie - Hyde Park, 2003
C-print, 18 x 18 inches,
Courtesy of the artist |
Bathing
Cap, 2003
C-print, 18 x 18 inches,
Courtesy of the artist |
Boston
- Beach, 2003
C-print, 18 x 18 inches,
Courtesy of the artist |
Shop
Window - Roslindale, 2003
C-print, 18 x 18 inches,
Courtesy of the artist |
Rita-
Revere, 2003
C-print, 18 x 18 inches,
Courtesy of the artist |
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