Gallery Favorites – Beth Moon: Ancient Kingdoms

photo-eye Gallery Gallery Favorites
Beth Moon: Ancient Kingdoms In this Gallery Favorites collection Anne, Lucas, and Yoana each select a work of note from a different project currently on view in the exhibition. Focusing on our core principle to "collect work you love" the Gallery Staff has selected images from the exhibition that resound personally for each of them while honoring Moon's themes of humanity’s relationship with nature, the passage of time, resilience, and survival.

photo-eye Gallery's current exhibition, Ancient Kingdoms, is a solo exhibition of black-and-white platinum prints by renowned photographer Beth Moon spanning two decades of work and images from four discrete projects. In this Gallery Favorites collection Anne, Lucas, and Yoana each select a work of note from a different project currently on view in the exhibition. Focusing on our core principle, to "collect work you love," the Gallery Staff has selected images from the exhibition that resound personally for each of them while honoring Moon's themes of humanity’s relationship with nature, the passage of time, resilience, and survival.

Anne Kelly selects Avenue of Baobabs

Avenue of Baobabs, Platinum/Palladium Print, 30x40" Image, 5/5, $16,000 – Beth Moon

Anne Kelly - Gallery Director

anne@photoeye.com

505.988.5152 x121

It is no secret that I love trees – or photography!   Having grown up in the mountains in Colorado I was lucky to have spent my early childhood playing in the forest amongst the pine and aspen trees …so many fond memories are burned into my subconscious – and  I have not doubt that my fascination with trees is directly connected. That said, I was not surprised to learn that Beth Moon had a similar childhood, one spent playing in the wilderness.

Baobab trees are simply amazing, they are known to grow 16 to 98 feet tall with trunk diameters up to 36 ft and can store up to 32,000 gallons of water in the trunk. The oldest reported tree was 2,450 years old when it died.

I have never actually seen a Baobab tree …other than in pictures. I suppose this is one of the many reasons that I love photography: it allows the photographer to be able to share their experience and transport the viewer to far away lands. I hope to experience a Baobab in person one day, hopefully sooner than later since many are starting to disappear. In the meantime, as I gaze upon Beth Moon’s image I feel like I am walking down a dirt road in the sunlight – in the avenue to the Baobab.


Lucas Maclaine Shaffer selects Belgian Bearded D'Anvers

Belgian Bearded D'Anvers, Platinum/Palladium Print, 7.5x6" Image, Edition of 9, $950 – Beth Moon

Lucas Maclaine Shaffer

Special Projects & Client Relations

lucas@photoeye.com

505.988.5152 x114

Look at this hen. Proud, fancy, confident – you might even call its appearance regal. It's not what you normally call to mind when you think of a chicken, at least I don't, and I think this disparity is just what Beth Moon has in mind. Moon's Augurs and Soothsayers is a series of platinum hen portraits aimed at reframing our relationship with animals regularly farmed for the food industry. I connect with Moon's attempt to defamilarize our preconceptions regarding the animals we choose to eat and respond to the gorgeous formal treatment she lavishes on each hen portrait in the series. With it, Moon effectively humanizes her subjects, showcasing their individual character and respectfully giving us the chance to confront them eye to eye, if only in a gallery setting.

Aside from Augurs and Soothsayers' ultimate goals, I find the series of images delightful and fun. Moon creates empathy in the viewer through striking a delicate balance between the playful, light-hearted elements of the series, like the fluffy appearance of the Belgian Bearded D'Anvers above and the heavier undercurrent of the project. Belgian Bearded D'Anvers is my favorite of the series, and the exhibition, because I respond to her strong character as described by Moon's deft photographic treatment.


Yoana Medrano selects Listening to the Sky

Listening to the Sky, Platinum/Palladium Print, 20x16" Image, 3/25, $2400 – Beth Moon

Yoana Medrano – Gallery Associate

yoana@photoeye.com

505.988.5152 x 116

A picture is worth a thousand words; well, I think you could fill a series of books with Beth Moon’s work. Every piece takes you to a new place or a moment. She is fantastic at creating these stories with her imagery – connecting with our core selves. Of the four series that we are exhibiting in the gallery, Thy Kingdom Come has captured my attention, the work has a soft sweet quality that pulls you in. The stories are a bit more apparent in this work: young women on some kind of journey with animals. It is quite somber, but I wouldn’t say sad, and carries along with it an appreciation for our furry friends.

Listening to the Sky is my favorite image of the show. The girl in the photograph is pressing a bird up to her ear as if to listen to the secrets that the bird has received through a lifetime in flight. I think we forget to realize in our regular day to day that we share this planet with amazing and gorgeous creatures. This work makes me slow down and remember that we are together and in some ways, it is sad but in a way that makes me wake up. I believe in these women, their journey, and how they pay their respects to the creatures that we tend to ignore.

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Print prices listed were correct at the time this post was published. Prices may increase as the print edition sells. Please contact Gallery Staff for the most current print information.

For more information, and to purchase prints, please contact Gallery Staff at 

505-988-5152 x202 or gallery@photoeye.com

Beth Moon: Ancient Kingdoms

On view through November 24th, 2018

» View the Work

» Read Anne Kelly's Interview with Beth Moon

» Behind the Photo with Beth Moon

photo-eye Gallery
541 S. Guadalupe Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501

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