Dominique Paul

Lucie, degeneration6 by Dominique Paul

"Where are we going as a species?" is the question at the core of my work as I turn to the past to foresee where we are going in the future. I use paintings from the humanist period to create works in an era that has been identified as post-humanist. My work consists in projecting a portrait onto a live model and then photographing this encounter.  In an alchemic process, the model and the iconic figure transubstantiate for a moment to become the other. Both the model and the figure painted become are being transformed, such that they both lose some aspect of their identity in the process. This work is at the crossroads of painting and photography, where the images are multi-layered both in the processes and in their interpretations.

Ranee Palone Flynn

Untitled by Ranee Palone Flynn

Ranee embraces life on Boston's North Shore. She photographs strangers in their own clothes in their personal environments, finding the majority of her subjects by placing ads in Cape Ann newspapers. Drawn to the natural light of each specific setting, she eschews the use of studio lighting. During the brief sitting (60 to 90 minutes) Ranee is able to capture an intimacy, the comfort and freedom that a stranger can sometimes afford.

Diane Meyer

Me And Prince by Diane Meyer

Diane uses photography to investigate American popular culture by focusing on contemporary myths and cliches, especially as they are expressed through the entertainment industry. Her interest in "restaging the staged" documents our shared obsession with celebrity and our collective desire to make celebrity banal. This series uses the aesthetics of the snapshot to create scenes in which the artist participates in everyday friendly recreation with people we recognize as celebrities. She hired a series of impersonators to create each quiet moment and captures our desire to project ourselves into the world of the famous.

Melisa Sharpe

Dysthemia by Melisa Sharpe

"Dysthemia" is part of an experiment in portraits painted with light-a technique that involves leaving the film's camera shutter open in a darkened room and selectively illuminating still subjects with flashlights. There's only me-the photographer-and the models, in a creative relationship. It's a bit of light therapy in which the couch is a stage for characters to emerge, raising questions as to whether the portraits are real or imaginary. Does some part of the model's essence shine though or is it all fantasy?

Polly Chandler

Judy's Shoes by Polly Chandler

My images are not portraits, but narratives of my inner self. In searching for my life's purpose, my work documents the exploration of my own identity. By combining figures with backgrounds, costumes and props, I create works that are spiritual and allegorical. Seeking insight into who I will eventually become, I look for resolutions to unanswerable questions.

Jessica Todd Harper

Meggan by Jessica Todd Harper

I grew up copying paintings. When I went to college I became an art history major and fell in love with Vermeer, Memling, Pieter de Hooch and other Northern European artists who at first glance seemed to make paintings about nothing everyday-ness, but whose charged, quiet domestic scenes haunted me afterwards. My photographs reflect all these influences. I strive to make pictures that rely on their intimacy and intensity to touch on the grander narratives of consciousness and what it means to be alive.

Lydia Panas

Invincible by Lydia Panas

I am interested in how people show us who they are. Throughout the series, families, friends and individuals I know, pose for my camera. In many instances they are together, yet so alone. I want my photographs to resonate long after this decade to remind us of that tenuous place which is the human condition.