Each year for the past three decades, the Barrett Art Center has organized a national juried photography exhibition, curated by a known quantity in the field. The Poughkeepsie institution’s 31st such annual competition, Photowork 2018, opens on February 10, with an opening reception from 3 to 6 p.m. This year’s curator is E. Jason Wambsgans of the Chicago Tribune, honored with the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for his sensitive portrayal of a 10-year-old shooting survivor. In choosing among the more than 800 entries for the Photoworks 2018 exhibition, Wambsgans says that he “sought to select a body of work that creates, connected by invisible and intangible narrative threads, a vision of the wonder and mystery of our world.”
The exhibition includes 58 photographic works submitted by 49 artists from 18 states. Eight of them are from the mid-Hudson Valley: Jim Allen of Millbrook, Evan D’Arpino of Beacon, David King of Lagrangeville, Trevor Messersmith of Marlboro, Julie Mihaly and Les Muldorf of Poughkeepsie and Jane Soodalter and Bidu Tashjian of Cold Spring. Mihaly’s photograph is part of a yearlong project titled Radius, in which she photographed as many people as possible within a four-mile radius of her Poughkeepsie home.
The five photographers from Dutchess County – Allen, D’Arpino, King, Mihaly and Muldorf – will present illustrated artist’s talks on Saturday, March 10 from 3 to 4:30 p.m., with a reception to follow. Photowork 2018 will remain open to the public through March 24, along with a Juried Members’ Show, featuring works selected by Sean Hemmerle, a Poughkeepsie-based professional photographer and photography instructor. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.
The Barrett Art Center is located at 55 Noxon Street in Poughkeepsie. To learn more, call (845) 471-2550, e-mail info@barrettartcenter.org or visit www.barrettartcenter.org.
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