By: Jaclyn Sheridan
Posted In: Entertainment
Photo credit: Jaclyn Sheridan
Blurred: Photographs from Salve associate art professor, Barbara Shamblin´s show, “Image and Memory: Photographs of Italy” are sure to leave viewers in vertigo.
Barbara Shamblin’s show, Image and Memory: Photographs of Italy, currently on display at the Newport Art Museum, is not about clear sight. Her work evokes personal perception.
“‘Why are they blurry?’ I keep getting this over and over again,” the artist said, at the Gallery Talk she gave on Oct. 13. The delicate and unfocused images of Tuscan streets and Umbrian villages seem to vibrate off the gallery walls. “These pictures to me are very much about the painterly elements of color and light and shape,” Shamblin explained. An associate art professor at Salve, Shamblin is recognized locally and nationally for her photography and, as she describes it, “the blur.” Her current show expresses a special place of reminiscence. “About 15 years ago, I first went to Italy on a Salve trip, and I had one of those experiences of extreme familiarity,” Shamblin explained. “I was in Florence, standing in the Boboli gardens overlooking the city…and the place reminded me so much of the flavor of the southern town that I grew up in.” The artist recalled the comfort and safety of her grandmother’s house in Alabama, with its boxwood trees, cool breezes, and stone and stucco houses. Those distinct memories were translated into her photographs of Italy. “I was just seduced by these houses and by the colors, the gorgeous and sensuous colors…the blues and the peaches and the ocher’s.” The prints themselves place the viewer in a soothing space. Luminous blushes and hues of color swim in a distant universe. Lending themselves to individual reflection, the transient and hazy images invite the beauty of personal experience to reveal reality. “A lot of times people do see a soft-focus image as something removed from the actual, and it…takes you to a different place,” the artist said. Shamblin displays a true love of the craft. And ultimately, her carefully considered work radiates subtle splendor. “When I’m photographing…it’s like looking into a little jewel box. It’s just incredible.” Image and Memory is on display in the Wright Gallery of the Newport Art Museum through Oct. 30.
