THE SILENT NARRATOR, a New Solo Show by Irina Dakhnovskaia-Lawton

“Four Women” by Irina Lawton

Multiple Exposures Gallery is pleased to present THE SILENT NARRATOR, a solo exhibition of photographic work by Irina Dakhnovskaia-Lawton. The exhibition opens March 11 and runs through April 19, 2025. 
 
THE SILENT NARRATOR explores the relationship between time and memory, storytelling, and the power of photographs and photo albums. “Sometimes, especially those with notations and marks, photo album pages are skillfully crafted and edited to tell a powerful visual story where all the members are at the same time familiar and unrecognizable. As the final page is turned and the cover is closed, what remains is not just a physical object, but an intangible, layered impression. It's a mystery, a merging of realities between the narrator and the spectator, leaving us with a lingering curiosity about the stories that lie within," Dakhnovskaia-Lawton says. 
 

EXHIBITION DETAILS

Dates:  March 11 - April 19, 2025
Hours: 11am-5pm daily

Location: Multiple Exposures Gallery, Studio 312, Torpedo Factory Art Center [map]     

About Irina Dakhnovskaia-Lawton

Born in Latvia, raised and educated in Moscow and presently working as a visual artist DC area, Irina Lawton is attracted to the examination of different subject matters. These vary from the psychological intensity of portraiture to the complex political and social consequences of regime change in Post-Communist Russia to the sensibility and techniques of pictorial aesthetics at the turn of the 20th century. These concepts are linked together through the use of a common style. Multiple layers of meaning convey a complex narrative in one frame.

Irina holds MFA in photography from the Maine Media College, Maine

While living in Miami in 2004-2021 Irina was an artist in residence at the Bakehouse Art Complex. Her work participated in Miami Art Fair, Toronto art Fair, Affordable art Fair, Agua Art Fair, The Boca Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Baker Museum of Art, Naples, FL, Bienes Rare Book Collectioons. Her work was featured in The Miami Herald and Sun-Sentinel newspapers among others. Irina’s works included in the Arthur Jaffe Rare Book Collection, NOVA University Permanent Collection, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Printmaking Department Collection and several important private collections.

In 2022 Irina relocated to the Washington DC area and became a member of the Multiple Exposure Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center.

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MEET THE ARTIST OPPORTUNITIES

  • March 15, 21, 30

  • April 5, 12                               

Irina will be at Multiple Exposures Gallery from 11am-5pm on the dates above. We invite you to stop in to see the exhibition, meet Irina, and engage in conversation about the collective memories and personal stories that surface when looking at images suspended in time. Multiple Exposures Gallery is located on the 3rd Floor in the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA. [map]

MEDIA + PURCHASE INQUIRIES
High resolution images for media use are available upon request. All images are available for purchase through the gallery. 

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DisCerning Eye, Known but Unseen: Art Review of Tom Sliter’s show by Mark Jenkins

THE HEAVY STONES IN THE FOREGROUND OF TOM SLITER'S photographs appear implacable and invulnerable. But the forces that have shaped them over millennia can be discerned in the backgrounds of the pictures in "Chiseled by Time: Sculpture of the Mojave Desert," the local artist's Multiple Exposures Gallery show. Hot sunlight, soft clouds, and dark skies represent the environment that has gradually eroded the rocky landscapes into their current forms.

Sliter's statement calls his subjects "nature's own Zen gardens," and stones do dominate the pictures in this series. The photographer conveys both the sheer bulk of the boulders and their intricate textures, which he accents by adding sepia toning to the black-and-white digital images. The gently grainy surfaces are set off by shadowy crevices and occasional scraps of spiky or prickly vegetation, blooming improbably from the rock.

Above are skies, presumably blue to the naked eye, that often verge on black. Whether this effect is achieved with filters or computer imaging, the ebony heavens dramatically frame the gray stones and white wisps of cloud. They also suggest the power of wind and rain that, over time, wear and gouge the chunky stone loaves and near-orbs.

All the pictures are medium shots that verge on closeups, save for one widescreen composition. Intriguingly, Sliter carefully tears the edges of his prints. The ragged borders echo the violence of erosion and tectonic shifts, but they also show the presence of the creator. In the digital age, Sliter demonstrates the power of still doing some things by hand.

Tom Sliter: Chiseled by Time: Sculpture of the Mojave Desert

Through March 9 at Multiple Exposures Gallery, Torpedo Factory, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. multipleexposuresgallery.com. 703-683-2205.

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City Lights: Tom Sliter’s CHISELED BY TIME: SCULPTURES OF THE MOJAVE DESERT by Louis Jacobson

Ongoing: Tom Sliter at Multiple Exposures Gallery

Rarely does a photographer’s choice of using sepia toning rather than standard black and white make as much of a difference as it does with Tom Sliter’s exhibit, Chiseled by Time: Sculptures of the Mojave Desert. For the project, Sliter parked himself in California’s desolate Mojave Desert, capturing a mix of landscapes and close-ups of boulders and desert flora. In the desert’s overwhelmingly beige environment, Sliter’s sepia palette works better than either color or black and white could. Sliter’s fine-grained digital images pay off the closer the viewer gets to the photograph, revealing mottled, dimpled, and crevassed rock surfaces and the delicate spikes of yucca fronds. One image gainfully pairs rough rock surfaces with an angular, starburst-shaped portrayal of the sun; other photographs portray smoothly weathered boulders as if they were fleshy skin pics. The shade of sky varies from image to image, alternating between wispy cirrus clouds and inky black vacuums. Sliter’s standout image is “Joshua Tree Boulders,” a sharply horizontal landscape that combines gently undulating layers of sky, mountains, boulders, and shrubbery and offers enough detail to somehow show every individual clod of earth. Chiseled by Time: Sculptures of the Mojave Desert runs through March 9 at Multiple Exposures Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. multipleexposuresgallery.com. Free. —Louis Jacobson

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CHISELED BY TIME: SCULPTURES OF THE MOJAVE DESERT, a solo exhibition by Tom Sliter

Fallen Boulder ©Tom Sliter

Multiple Exposures Gallery is pleased to present CHISELED BY TIME: SCULPTURES OF THE MOJAVE DESERT, a solo exhibition of photographic work by Tom Sliter. The exhibition opens January 28 and runs through March 9, 2025. 
 
CHISELED BY TIME is set in the vast, sun-scorched expanse of the Mojave Desert, where the boulders of Joshua Tree National Park tell a story written in layers of patience and persistence. The exhibition is an exploration of geological sculpture — a visual narrative of a complex geological dance that began millions of years ago with the earth’s tectonic upheavals and continues today with water and wind. 

The result is nature's own Zen gardens — objects that embody both tremendous weight and an almost ethereal sense of precarious balance. Each boulder tells a story of survival, of gradual transformation, of both resistance and adaptation to some of the most extreme environmental conditions on the planet. 

Through CHISELED BY TIME, viewers are invited to look beyond the immediate, to see the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary, to recognize the art that exists not just in human creation, but in the patient, persistent creativity of our planet itself.

VIEW THE EXHIBITION VIRTUALLY : CHISELED BY TIME  

Dates:  January 28 - March 9, 2025
Hours: 11am-5pm daily

Location: Multiple Exposures Gallery, Studio 312, Torpedo Factory Art Center [map]                

MEET THE ARTIST OPPORTUNITIES

  • February 2, 15 and 27

  • March 1, 2                               

Tom will be at Multiple Exposures Gallery from 11am-5pm on the dates above. We invite you to stop in to see the exhibition, meet Tom, and engage in conversation about the timelessness of the natural sculptures he presents and the profound beauty of slow, inexorable change. Multiple Exposures Gallery is located on the 3rd Floor in the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA. [map]

MEDIA + PURCHASE INQUIRIES
High resolution images for media use are available upon request. All images are available for purchase through the gallery. 

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Introducing Guillermo Olaizola + Russell Barajas!

 

We are excited to introduce our newest MEG artists, Guillermo Olaizola and Russell Barajas. They emerged as standout talents during an intense selection process, and we are thrilled to have these exceptional fine art photographers join our gallery. 

Russell Barajas

Russell Barajas

Russell Barajas joins us as an analogue photographer whose favorite subjects are humans, human nature and the echoes of human presence, in whatever form she may find them. Russell, also known as RC, processes and prints her images in her own darkroom, and she continually experiments with different tools and techniques, including pinhole, hand-coloring, and photograms. “My desire is to continue producing photography that amplifies the role of chance and celebrates the hand of the artist rather than muting it,” she says.

Guillermo Olaizola 

Guillermo Olaizola comes to us passionate about using photography as a powerful tool for artistic expression. At its core, he says, his photography is a personal quest to discover, learn from, and appreciate the profound beauty of the world. Guillermo’s photographic work spans a variety of subjects and techniques, from landscapes and macro photography to portraiture, street scenes, and travel, and his portfolios reflect his preference for minimalist images that embody elegance and simplicity. 

“Photography, to me, is an extraordinary field that allows artists to engage with the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. As photographers, we are rewarded for our patience and willingness to slow down, observe closely, and discover the visual gems the world offers,” Guillermo says.

We are delighted Russell and Guillermo are joining us! Their images are now available for viewing in-person at MEG and on the MEG website. The gallery is open daily from 11am-5pm at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, #312 in Alexandria, VA.

Guillermo Olaizola

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Making Merry

Thank you to everyone who joined us in December to close out the year at our Holiday Open House. It was a joy to reconnect with familiar faces and to meet new friends.

We were especially honored to welcome the City of Alexandria's new Mayor, Alyia Gaskins, and Alexandria City Council Member John Chapman, who joined us for the festive afternoon. As we look forward to the year ahead, please join us in extending our best wishes to Mayor Gaskins, Council Member Chapman, and the entire City Council as they work together to guide and serve the city we all cherish.

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DisCerning Eye, Our Town: Art Review by Mark Jenkins

Solid buildings and ethereal people at Multiple Exposures; burned books and solitary figures at IA&A; nature in motion and under threat at Waverly Street

Van Pulley, “Kennedy Center” (Multiple Exposures Gallery)

GRAND EDIFICES, OFTEN RECOGNIZABLE, FRAME EVERYDAY MOMENTS in "Capital Perspectives," an exhibition of 20 photographs by 12 members of Multiple Exposures Gallery. Sometimes the subjects are the structures themselves, as in Tom Sliter's "Cupola" or Van Pulley's "Dramatic Arts," both architectural interiors. (The latter photo gazes out a building's massive window at ... another building.) More often, however, there are people in the compositions, although they're usually dwarfed by their monumental surroundings and barely warmed by light.

Juried by Noe Todorovich, executive director of Exposed DC, the show is split equally between black-and-white and color pictures. But occasional splashes of red or orange just accentuate the generally muted palettes, as in Tim Hyde's "Snow Sisters," in which five cloaked figures navigate a near-whiteout in central Washington. For a frozen instant, the white-dusted pedestrians resemble historical statues of the sort common in nearby parks.

Several of the contributors render people as dark silhouettes, like the two conversationalists seated in an eatery in Pulley's "Face-to-Face." The other shadowy beings include a couple, one with a bicycle, in Alan Sislen's "Tidal Basin Reflections," and the two-museum goers of Soomin Ham's "While You Are Watching," who peer out another huge window from another notable recent D.C. building. In Fred Zafran's "Triangle," a solitary man is secondary to the title subject, a shaft of light. Mists nearly swallow such small figures as the lone nighttime Mall walker in Sandy LeBrun-Evans's "Lincoln Watch" and the workers swathed in steam in Eric Johnson's "Maine Avenue Fish Market."

Water and a lone person feature as well in one of the lighter-hearted pictures, Sarah Hood Salomon's image of a woman, wearing work clothes and clutching a briefcase, who hops past lawn sprinklers outside the U.S. Capitol. Equally witty is Sislen's study of the usually imposing Washington Monument, reduced to being just one of the guys amid a thicket of Smithsonian spires and turrets. The photo is, playfully, the show's only depiction of a crowd.

Through Jan. 5 at Multiple Exposures Gallery, Torpedo Factory, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. multipleexposuresgallery.com; 703-683-2205.

Source: https://discerningeye.substack.com/p/our-t...
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Capital Perspectives, MEG Group Show: Art Review by Louis Jacobson

New Year’s Eve With Sammy Rae & the Friends and Hip-Hop Holiday Honors: City Lights for Dec. 26–Jan. 1

Maureen Minehan, “Bus Terminal” on view in MEG’s exhibit, Capital Perspectives

Capital Perspectives, the latest juried photography exhibition at Alexandria’s Multiple Exposures Gallery, aims to train a lens on D.C. Mostly, though, the participating photographers seek out monumental Washington: Tom Sliter’s soaring rotunda, Sandy LeBrun-Evans’ nighttime Iwo Jima memorial, Van Pulley’s Kennedy Center, Alan Sislen’s Tidal Basin. In fact, in a couple cases, official Washington needlessly intrudes on otherwise compelling action. Sarah Salomon’s charming, briefcase-toting woman races to work through an array of sprinklers, but she’s overshadowed by the looming Capitol dome, while LeBrun-Evans’ intriguing parallel arches of water are overwhelmed by the surrounding edifices of the Mall. The further the exhibit moves from official D.C., the more satisfying it becomes. Pulley captures an aerial tableau in which a figure holding coffee walks through a space in which the floor is made of mesmerizing retro-Deco tiles; Tim Hyde photographs a group of snow-covered figures crossing the street who could have stepped right out of the Korean War Memorial statuary; and Maureen Minehan offers a surprisingly crisp nocturne that features an otherwise ordinary-looking bus terminal. Perhaps the finest images in the exhibit are a trio of black-and-white works by Eric Johnson. One is a moody, fog-shrouded take on the Anacostia River; another is an eerie image of a derelict RFK Stadium; while a third features the Maine Avenue Fish Market, complete with stacked rows of crabs, wafting steam, and a bustling squad of employees. Word to the wise: To capture D.C. best, follow Johnson’s example. Capital Perspectives runs through Jan. 5 at Multiple Exposures Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. Daily, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. multipleexposuresgallery.com. Free. —Louis Jacobson

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