Ellen Carey: Struck by Light
Ellen Carey, Crush & Pull with Hands & Penlights, 6 Polaroid color prints, 2022.
Brett Abbott, Director and Lisa Williams, Curator
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut
July 2023 - January 2024
Struck by Light represents the largest survey of Ellen Carey’s experimental photo-objects and lens-based art opening at the New Britain Musuem of American Art (NBMAA) showcasing iconic works spanning decades of her career (1991-2022), all from NBMAA collection as well as the artist’s own. In Lacock, England, home of photography, The Fox Talbot Museum, also features a solo exhibition by Carey, Light Struck (May 2023-March 2024); it complements the New Britain Museum of American Art. The NBMAA exhibition includes examples from Carey’s Photography Degree Zero (1996 - 2023) umbrella artistic practice of Polaroid 20 X 24 lens-based images, Pulls & Rollbacks, as well as her Struck by Light (1998 - 2023) series of camera-less photograms, Dings & Shadows, inspired by the earliest examples of paper photography. Collectively, the works trace Carey’s enormous contributions to the field of photography through her ongoing and ever-innovative experiments in light and color, dings and shadows, dark/negative versus white/positive.
