Analyze This!

What Makes It Great? / January 24, 2014

“Untitled 005, 2013”, 7”x 19” gelatin silver print by Elizabeth Ellenwood (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston)

Architecture tells a tale of cultural history and, at its best, becomes as transcendent as music and poetry. No wonder photographers through the ages have felt inspired to offer their creative renditions of society’s largest-scale works of art, our built environment. Now at Panopticon Gallery in Boston’s Kenmore Square, “Architectural Analysis” highlights a selection of exciting and diverse photographic interpretations of the buildings where we work, play and live.

“Untitled 018, 2013”, 18”x 14” gelatin silver print by Elizabeth Ellenwood (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston)

Elizabeth Ellenwood’s B&W architectural abstractions encourage the viewer to observe her work in iterations, between close up and far back. Using multiple exposures of exterior urban structures, Ellenwood composes layered designs, melodic and orderly in some areas, cacophonous and frenzied in others. Her dynamic arrangements of shapes and patterns create energy and movement in her images, which suggest different interpretations with each viewing.

“Roundness, 2013”, 27”x 35” gelatin silver prints by Alena Kuzub (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston)

While also using B&W film to make images of architectural exteriors, Alena Kuzub creates an entirely different form of abstraction. Her artwork features individual buildings, deconstructed and inventively reconstructed into sculptural wall montages that create a mellifluous whole. Especially imaginative is Kuzub’s manipulation of negative spaces, formed primarily from her use of sky and the holes she leaves in the mosaics she builds from photographic sections mounted on masonite. Kuzub’s lively compositions draw our attention to the interaction of spaces and the graceful geometric shapes she creates from the architectural features of Boston’s buildings.

“Musee du Louvre 141, 2009”, 12”x 18” archival pigment print by Andrea Greitzer (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston)

Andrea Greitzer’s natural light, color photographs explore the uninhabited interior and exterior enclaves of museums throughout the world. Attracted to the walkways, stairwells and atria that people ordinarily rush through on their way to the art galleries, Greitzer focuses her attention on the interplay of light and space in these largely unnoticed areas. Her elegant treatments of color and composition exude quietude and contemplation. But there also exists the anticipation of human presence and interaction. Greitzer gently raises our awareness in her sublimely sophisticated images.

“Wang Theater, View from Stage, Boston, MA, 2011”, 30”x 17” archival pigment print by John D. Woolf (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston)

John D. Woolf’s photographs are like spectacular arias, delivered from the stages of majestic theatres built in the 1920’s. A labor of love, his 180 degree panoramas of ornate, renovated performing arts venues are comprised of fourteen “rotational” photographs stitched together with specialized software and meticulously edited for factors such as rectilinear edges and correct color values – none of which are even slightly detectable in the final photographs. Woolf’s sweeping, lush and detailed views of these cultural historic sites are a tour de force delivered with dedication and passion.

“Opera House, View from Stage, Boston, MA, 2011”, 30”x 19” archival pigment print by John D. Woolf (courtesy of the artist and Panopticon Gallery, Boston)

This captivating exhibit of individual perspectives on interior and exterior architectural environments is on view in the private room at Panopticon Gallery through March 12^th, 2014.