A contemporary photography gallery creating new opportunities for artists to showcase their work
while offering the community affordable collectable fine art -- Atlanta, Georgia

Dorothy O'Connor graduated from Georgia State University with degrees in Literature and Studio Arts. She continued her education at The Creative Circus, a commercial art school in Atlanta. From 2005 to 2007, her work was selected by Women In Photography International, an annual listing of the top 100 works by female photographers. Ms. O'Connor's work reflects how dreams and the unconscious twist reality and can often illuminate feelings and perspectives. The inspiration for these depictions comes from a very personal place, and the use of an 8 X 10 film camera demands such patience and deliberateness that she is forced to experience the situations depicted in a very physical way as well. This in combination with certain technical choices, enables Dorothy to transform commonplace locations into extraordinary scenes, images that are personally significant to the artist as well as being unique and evocative works of art.

Longtime Atlanta resident Jenny Williamson works most often with vintage cameras, particularly the Diana and the Zeiss rangefinder. Her work has been featured in galleries and exhibition spaces throughout the Atlanta area, including the Davis Waldron Gallery. Her photographs documenting the world of long-distance truck drivers can soon be seen in the book Truckers, scheduled to be released this year by Mark Batty Publishing. In this show, Williamson’s work (with one exception) is from the Diana camera, a camera that was given away free at gas stations in the 1960’s. Like the Zeiss, it’s a medium format camera producing square images; unlike the Zeiss, it employs a plastic lens. The Diana is known for its impermanence and imperfections, particularly light leaks, vignetting, and blurring around the edges. The dreamlike quality that these peculiarities impart to captured moments is what holds such great appeal to Williamson. The exception is the portrait Mel, which Williamson shot with her Zeiss, a camera she loves for its vintage body and precise functioning.

Dorothy and Jenny share an affinity for producing dreamlike images. Dorothy's photography is more intentionally dreamlike, whereas Jenny's achieves a similar effect due principally to her use of Diana Cameras. They both, however, create their work from a deeply personal place; and the results are photographs which become personal experiences for viewers as well, leaving them the space to bring their own thoughts and emotions to the fore. Like dreams, these images can be interpreted in a variety of ways. To me, they call to mind a myriad of associations concerning dreams and reality, harmony and disharmony, memory, melancholy, and the passage of time. Another viewer, however, may come away with something completely different, which I think is the true value of artistic expression. An image should be an intimate and visceral experience for each viewer, independent of the artist’s intention or any imposed point of view. I would like to thank these two photographers for their time and effort, and for the opportunity to exhibit this bold and intuitive work.
Ron Hughes/Composition Gallery