The Bundy Museum & Binghamton Photo Presents:
Against the Dying of Light
Cyanotypes by Margaret Winchell
First Friday Opening Reception September 4, 2020
Exhibition is on display from 9.4.20 - 12.29.20
Located in the Binghamton Photo first floor gallery
32 Cedar St. (adjacent to the Bundy Museum)
Admission to art gallery is always free
Tuesday - Saturday 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
For regular visiting hours, walk-ins are welcome, however, booking a reservation online is recommended. Upon arriving, please check in at our visitor’s center at 133 Main St., Binghamton NY.
Contact Binghamton Photo at:
Binghamtonphotodarkroom@gmail.com or call (607) 772-9179 ext.102
Watch a virtual tour of the gallery below, or in the videos section at Facebook.com/bundymuseum and The Bundy Museum YouTube channel.
The Cyanotype Process:
Cyanotype is a 178 year old photographic printing process that produces prints in a distinctive dark greenish-blue. The process was invented by Sir John Herschel, a brilliant astronomer and scientist, in 1842. The word cyan comes from the Greek, meaning “dark blue substance.” No darkroom is needed; instead it uses the power of the sun and iron salt solutions rather than the silver salt solution of black and white photography. Ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide are combined, and exposure to UV light creates ferric ferrocyanide, also known as Prussian Blue (named for the color of the Prussian military uniforms.)
Artist Statement:
The great poets knew that the problem with moments is that they are fleeting, a favorite quote of mine represents the impact photography has on these moments, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Dylan Thomas once shouted into the abyss. The camera, for me, represents a bloodless revolution. A protest against the fogginess of things. A photographer has the rare opportunity to capture a moment; one that never had existed before, that will never exist again and whose beauty would have otherwise been surrendered. The photographer flirts with immortality.
In this exhibition, I capture my subjects in different modes of being, setting, and placement. What ties these moments together? In all of their beauty and rawness, they share the quality of being fleeting, fickle and heading places other than where I find them in these cyanotypes.
There’s this pit in my stomach that widens as I contend with the feeling of loss, thinking of my grandmother alone in the nursing home without being able to see her, this comes to me as an unfinished crossword, a cup of tea and a portrait of stolen youth. There’s a feminine beauty, anatomy made music in water, which fills me with awe. There’s a loneliness that is so difficult to relate with others, that is palpable in the mundanity of my college home and its many imperfections. I aim to keep my finger on the pulse of my surroundings, studying the difference in beats for all their beauty and anguish, and ultimately help you feel it too.
Artist Bio:
Margaret Winchell is a photographer whose work embodies the feeling of isolation through many different fields of photography. With the focus of her studies being in alternative processing, she specializes in cyanotypes, and capturing the movement of a form within them.
Margaret Winchell received her Associates of Science from the State University of New York Broome Community College, where she majored in visual communications, and holds a Bachelors of Science from the State University of New York at New Paltz, majoring in visual arts. Margaret Winchell studied photography at both universities, with photography as her concentration at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Margaret Winchell exhibited at many shows during her time of study, including student shows at the Gallery at SUNY Broome, a solo show at Social on State, and an all female show at local restaurants in Binghamton NY. As well as the gallery at Binghamton Photo, where she interned, and assisted with show set up. Margaret’s time at New Paltz includes a show in the Rotunda on campus. Currently, Margaret Winchell’s photography is included in a senior online show for the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Art Gallery Virtual Tour:
Against the Dying of Light - Cyanotypes by Margaret Winchell
Feel free to direct any feedback by contacting us.
The First Friday Art Walk Virtual Gallery Shows at The Bundy Museum are made possible by a grant from The Harriet Ford Dickenson Fund of the Community Foundation for South Central New York.
Support Provided by the General Operations Support Grant from the United Cultural Fund, a program of the Broome County Arts Council.
The Bundy Museum of History & Art
127-129 Main St. Binghamton, NY 13905