Once Through a Lens
a two-person exhibition by Jonathan Mark Jackson and Ali Newhard
past exhibition
on view
September 7–October 7, 2023
virtual tour
reception
Saturday, September 9, 6–8 pm
RSVP
canceled: artist talk
Thursday, October 5, 6–8 pm
Once Through a Lens is a two-person exhibition by Jonathan Mark Jackson and Ali Newhard. In this exhibition of photographs and videos, Jackson and Newhard present work that considers how the landscape of New England has structured their shared and disparate identities.
The landscape of New England possesses origins for both makers. Jackson, born in Detroit, Michigan, investigates preserved sites of colonial racial slavery within the region through his patrilineal ancestry. Work on view by Jackson stages historical objects in various wildlife reservations and historic sites. His constructions conjure phantom presences. Newhard, raised in Needham, Massachusetts, combines still and moving imagery to create narratives that explore deviations in structure and gender by queering and rupturing the image.
As graduate students at Rhode Island School of Design, a central aspect of their practices was journeying to corners of the region to ponder entangled histories through the landscape and fabulated characters. Jackson and Newhard both use large-format photography to make images that reveal their meaning slowly. This temporal effect creates a patina of nostalgia that propels the fleeting moments caught by both photographers into a past that is not yet gone. The photographs that they have made in haste—or as notes—document the levity possible in building an identity.
The pairing of their work into narrative sequences showcases their shared history of being racialized, queered, and estranged by the land. The pairing also creates a blurring between truth and fiction. In Once Through a Lens, Jackson and Newhard appear as characters of themselves. Their observations are blended, and a new authorial voice emerges.
preview
About the artists
Ali Newhard
Ali Newhard (she/her) is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her lens-based practice uses photography, video, and installation to explore gestures of queering narratives through images. Working with experimental editing and storytelling, her films and photographs act as spaces of rupture from traditional climactic structures. Newhard received a B.A. in Film & Media Arts from American University and attended Columbia University’s summer photography intensive in 2016. She holds an M.F.A. in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design and has shown work at the Washington Project for the Arts Collector’s Night, the Leroy Neiman Gallery, Gelman Gallery, and Microscope Gallery. She is the recipient of American University’s Summer Scholar & Artist Award and the Graduate Director Assistantship Award at Rhode Island School of Design. She formerly taught at Rhode Island School of Design and is currently an instructor at Pratt Institute.
Jonathan M. Jackson
Jonathan Mark Jackson (he/him) is an artist based in Boston, MA. He holds a B.A. in Art and The History of Art from Amherst College and an M.F.A. in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design. His work focuses on retouching the archives of colonial racial slavery to visualize the haptic and sonic quality of phantom Black subjects. He is a recipient of the Kodak Film Photo Award and the St. Botolph Foundation Emerging Artist Award, and has held an artist residency at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. His work is collected at the Mead Art Museum and the Syracuse University Art Museum. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at Boston College.
Press
Best Photo Picks September 2023 by Elin Spring and Suzanne Révy for What Will You Remember?
“Once Through a Lens” is a Gallery 263 Exhibition Proposal Series show, a program in which exhibitions are selected as part of a competitive jury process.