-
- Passages 1
-
- Passages 2
-
- Ghost Trees 1
-
- Ghost Trees 2
-
- Sentinel
-
- Two Augusts
-
- Wetlands
Ann Boese
When I Am Here, I Yearn for There
I move between two remembered landscapes. The upper Midwest, where I was born,is wide blue and green, with clear light and few shadows,mostly from passing clouds.This world is aware of the sky, air,and especially the spare, unbroken horizon. My other, now familiar landscape is my adopted home, New England. Here the land enfolds and encloses,with changeable light,pale, then warm, hard, then soft. Form draws attention, rather than space: the twist of a tree trunk or a shadow stippled on a rock. Colors are nuanced: the undulating greys of tree bark,moss green, fern, laurel.
These two landscapes converge and blur in this series of composite images. Hidden among the differences are commonalities. They linger on the edges, in the natural world’s liminal zones. A sentinel tree marks a New England field;like a solitary cottonwood punctuates the prairie sky with an exclamation point. Beach grass grasps the sand and holds back the sea; at a kindred margin, cattail slows the prairie wetland’s water and makes room for life.These echoes are (in the romantic or pictorial sense) as much about my inner as my outer experience. When I am here, I yearn for there–my childhood lakes and grasslands. And I am quite sure that if I return, I will do the same for here–nostalgic for the New England mountains, the woods,and sea.
Artist Bio
Photographer Ann Boese grew up surround by the corn and wheat fields,the lakes and sky of western Minnesota. Frequently working in landscape, her work is rooted in the natural world.She is deeply aware of the land; what it produces, its seasonal cycles,and how it sustains both our physical and emotional life. After moving to Massachusetts, Ann began studying photography, first at the DeCordova Museum School in Lincoln,and later at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester. Ann has exhibited in solo and group, themed and juried shows at the Griffin Museum, the Arlington Center for the Arts, the Lexington Arts & Crafts Society, Lex Media Community Media Center Gallery, and Cary Memorial Library.She has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Boston University, with a background inchild and adolescent resilience.