The Boston Globe
GALLERIES
Agrarian labors with biblical passion at Miller Yezerski
Holly Lynton’s “Sienna, Turkey Madonna, Shutesbury, MA.”
By Cate McQuaid G L O B E C O RRES PO N DENT J U N E 17 , 20 14
“I left New York for Massachusetts farm country in part to live the locavore life, defined mainly as eating locally, sustainably, and organically,” writes photographer Holly Lynton in her artist’s statement. “What I hadn’t anticipated is how it is more often than not an extension of people’s spiritual lives.”
Lynton’s spellbinding color photographs at Miller Yezerski Gallery of farm life in the Pioneer Valley convey an elemental connection to animals, the earth, and ritualized agricultural practices, from sheering sheep to curing tobacco. The imposing, often tense physicality of the men, women, and animals and the incidentally dramatic lighting turn barns and compost heaps into stages for conflict, surrender, and transfiguration. CONTINUE READING BELOW ▼
Art history echoes through these images, which recall Depression-era photographs of struggling farm families and gestures from Renaissance narrative paintings. “Sienna, Turkey Madonna, Shutesbury, MA” depicts a young woman gathering turkeys on a tabletop — apparently for slaughter, if the feathers flying overhead are an indication. She tilts her head as Mary does in works by Leonardo, Dürer, and others to gaze on the infant Jesus. She embodies tenderness and resolve. Smoke used to cure tobacco billows through barns, turning men into shadows. The steep composition of “Lift, Hadley, MA,” as one worker passes tobacco leaves up to another through light-infused smoke, recalls WPA-era murals of steelworkers, or paintings of Christ being brought down from the cross. In “Shedding Light, Amherst, MA,” the dark, rickety silhouette of a barn lit from behind could be a metaphor for a frail mortal undergoing enlightenment. All of Lynton’s farm images carry such freight: Life is a struggle filled with love and purpose, and therein lies grace.
HOLLY LYNTON, Pioneer Valley; YANA PAYUSOVA, Dinner for Thirty Souls Miller Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave., 617-262-0550. http://www.milleryezerskigallery.com Closing date: July 1
Yana Payusova’s droll paintings and ceramic sculptures, also at Miller Yezerski, tell another story: one of busy, bumbling, chaotic community. Some canvases revisit her life growing up in Russia. “Tea Party” depicts, in her wry, cartoony style, a mother and three kids in a cramped
Agrarian labors with biblical passion at Miller Yezerski
Holly Lynton’s “Sienna, Turkey Madonna, Shutesbury, MA.”
By Cate McQuaid G L O B E C O RRES PO N DENT J U N E 17 , 20 14
“I left New York for Massachusetts farm country in part to live the locavore life, defined mainly as eating locally, sustainably, and organically,” writes photographer Holly Lynton in her artist’s statement. “What I hadn’t anticipated is how it is more often than not an extension of people’s spiritual lives.”
Lynton’s spellbinding color photographs at Miller Yezerski Gallery of farm life in the Pioneer Valley convey an elemental connection to animals, the earth, and ritualized agricultural practices, from sheering sheep to curing tobacco. The imposing, often tense physicality of the men, women, and animals and the incidentally dramatic lighting turn barns and compost heaps into stages for conflict, surrender, and transfiguration. CONTINUE READING BELOW ▼
Art history echoes through these images, which recall Depression-era photographs of struggling farm families and gestures from Renaissance narrative paintings. “Sienna, Turkey Madonna, Shutesbury, MA” depicts a young woman gathering turkeys on a tabletop — apparently for slaughter, if the feathers flying overhead are an indication. She tilts her head as Mary does in works by Leonardo, Dürer, and others to gaze on the infant Jesus. She embodies tenderness and resolve. Smoke used to cure tobacco billows through barns, turning men into shadows. The steep composition of “Lift, Hadley, MA,” as one worker passes tobacco leaves up to another through light-infused smoke, recalls WPA-era murals of steelworkers, or paintings of Christ being brought down from the cross. In “Shedding Light, Amherst, MA,” the dark, rickety silhouette of a barn lit from behind could be a metaphor for a frail mortal undergoing enlightenment. All of Lynton’s farm images carry such freight: Life is a struggle filled with love and purpose, and therein lies grace.
HOLLY LYNTON, Pioneer Valley; YANA PAYUSOVA, Dinner for Thirty Souls Miller Yezerski Gallery, 460 Harrison Ave., 617-262-0550. http://www.milleryezerskigallery.com Closing date: July 1
Yana Payusova’s droll paintings and ceramic sculptures, also at Miller Yezerski, tell another story: one of busy, bumbling, chaotic community. Some canvases revisit her life growing up in Russia. “Tea Party” depicts, in her wry, cartoony style, a mother and three kids in a cramped
