Green Places/Green Spaces/Greenhouses
April 13, 2019 — June 16, 2019
Photographic Panoramas by Esther Pullman
In 1999, Esther Pullman began photographing places where plants were cultivated—fields, nurseries and most of all greenhouses. The project began without an overt message in mind. However, in the nearly 20 years since then, it has revealed many themes and deeper meanings: the passage of time, the cycle of the seasons, death and rebirth. It has also become a metaphor for our threatened planet.
The panoramic color photographs shown in Green Places/Green Spaces/Greenhouses explore the distinctive architecture, light and atmosphere of greenhouses throughout the year. Each panorama consists of two to seven photographs, composed as much as possible as independent and autonomous images. When exhibited side by side, the result is a continuous composition. The greenhouses Pullman has captured include those that are in use today as well as those that have been shuttered, their gardening equipment and machinery left to decay. A number of the panoramas in the exhibit feature local Cape Ann structures.
A graduate of Smith College and Yale University, Esther Pullman has worked as a graphic designer, a typographer and letterpress printer, and as a photographer. She has studied photography at Harvard Extension School, Maine Photographic Workshop, the Art Institute of Boston (now Lesley University) and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her first one-person photography exhibit was held at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 2006. Pullman has been a summer resident of Cape Ann since 1975.
Reviews
Outside In
By Elin Spring / "As any northerner can attest, winter is a long season. We yearn for light and warmth during the seemingly endless winter months. It was this entirely understandable quest that led Esther Pullman into a decade-long project photographing greenhouses and other places that plants are cultivated. Now her entrancing and immersive photographic panoramas are on view in a solo exhibit ..." read more ...
Esther Pullman’s evocative greenhouse photos at Cape Ann Museum
By Keith Powers for Wicked Local / "Abandoned greenhouses evoke a sense of loss. Actively maintained, a greenhouse forms a monument to sustainability, to optimism, to thriving in any environment. But ignored by humans, a forsaken greenhouse seems to mock all that determination, hard work and planning. Like a old stone wall deep in the woods. Or a deserted quarry." ... read more ...
Esther Pullman on 1623 Studios program "Need to Know"
Opening Reception
Saturday, April 13, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Free for CAM members or with Museum admission.
Gallery Talk
Saturday, April 20, 9:30 a.m.
Join Esther Pullman for an intimate tour of the exhibition. $10 CAM members; $15 nonmembers (includes admission). Space is limited, reservations required. Sign up online at Eventbrite.
American Landscape Photography: Art as Storytelling
Saturday, June 1, 3:00 p.m.
Holly Markovitz Goldstein, Ph.D., Art History Professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design presents a lecture on the various traditions throughout American Landscape photography. Free for CAM members; $10 nonmembers. Reservations required. Sign up online at Eventbrite.