WATERLANDS

• Franco Donaggio • Dorothy Monnelly •
May 28 ~ July 12, 2008

Artist Reception, June 5, 6-8 pm

Benham Gallery brings us “Waterlands.”  An exhibit of works by Franco Donaggio and Dorothy Monnelly exploring the intimate beauty and truth of the places they live in and so lovingly capture. The endangered bodies of water featured in this exhibit are crucial to the life of the land around them. 

Franco Donaggio embraced photography at the age of 15, initially intrigued by the potential of the photographic medium as an inexhaustible source of “stories.” Donaggio’s collection of photographs captures the beauty and fragility of the Venetian Lagoon in Italy. Donaggio was awarded the 1992 Italian ‘Grand Prix’ in still life photography, and the Italian ‘Kodak Gold Award’ for creativity in portrait. Donaggio often speaks of an increasing urgency to deepen his spiritual and artistic knowledge. His works from the Venetian Lagoon reflect his artistic quest.
 
Dorothy Monnelly has spent over thirty years living with and watching the many moods, changing tides, light, seasons, and the familiar lines and forms of salt marsh islands and tidal estuaries of the Great Marsh landscape. The Great Marsh stretches from Cape Ann, MA to New Hampshire, and covers an area of over 25,000 acres. It is the largest contiguous acreage of salt marsh north of Long Island. Monnelly brings us photographs selected to convey the feeling and complex interplay of elements of this ancient landscape, lying between land and sea, washed by wind and tide, and sculpted by glaciers that melted away at the edge of the sea over 10,000 years ago.

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High resolution Images available upon request
E mail: Marita@benhamgallery.com