Photographer Melonie Bennett will discuss her exhibition and debut monograph, “Holy Cow!,” from 5 to 8 p.m. Sept. 18 at the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts in Portland.
The event will include an interview, reading and book signing. Photographer and writer Robert Diamante, a friend and fellow photographer, will interview Bennett.
“Holy Cow!” presents an unconventional family album drawn from photographs Bennett made between 1990 and 2011. The black-and-white images capture rituals, traditions, dramas, laughter, gatherings, dogs and drunken exploits alongside quieter moments of reprieve.
Museum director Denise Froehlich described Bennett’s sensibility as what might result “if Diane Arbus had a funny bone,” adding that she especially enjoys the exhibition’s images of children.
GOST Books published the 176-page monograph in May. The book contains 66 images and was presented at AIPAD in New York City in the spring. It will also appear at Paris Photo this fall.
Bennett was born in 1969 and lives and works in Maine, where she has photographed family and friends for more than three decades. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from the Maine College of Art in 1991.
Shortly after Bennett graduated, photographer Judy Glickman asked her to help set up a darkroom. The two have continued to collaborate and support each other’s work for 35 years. Their different lives and shared experiences have provided lasting sources of inspiration.
Bennett’s photographs have appeared in exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Images from “Holy Cow!” will appear alongside work by Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Susan Meiselas and Gordon Parks in the forthcoming traveling exhibition “Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder.”
“Holy Cow!” is on view through Oct. 3.
The Maine Museum of Photographic Arts is at 387 Commercial St., Suite E, Portland. Call 207-298-7712, email contact.mmpa@gmail.com or visit www.mainemuseumofphotographicarts.org for more information.
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