Aerial Sightings: Photography by Margot Balboni and Paintings by Harry Bartnick
April 29 to May 31, 2002

The Trustman Art Gallery presents "Aerial Sightings," photography by Margot Balboni and paintings by Harry Bartnick April 29 to May 31, at the Simmons College Trustman Art Gallery, fourth floor, Main Campus Building, 300 The Fenway. There will be a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. May 2, with a gallery talk at 5:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Bartnick’s paintings and Balboni’s photographs share a common vantage with their search from helicopters and airplanes for landscape sources that convey the intrusion of indiscriminate industrial development entwined in the patterns of the aerial sightings. A close inspection of the images in this exhibit reveals the footprints of progress, which alter or mar the landscape as viewed from above.

Balboni has been flying and photographing in helicopters for 12 years. "Always alert, never touching the vibrating frame, I wait for the elements below to come apart, rearrange and then reveal what is hidden," she said. Her c-prints divulge unexpected juxtapositions of human activity and nature in urban, agricultural, suburban, and industrial settings.

Bartnick uses his own aerial photographs and other media sources to invent his images. The dichotomy between the lushly painted surfaces and the subversive anthropomorphic content imbues Bartnick’s paintings with an ominous sense of tension. Many of Bartnick’s paintings are packed with detail – houses, roads, industrial sites, trees creating patterns that frequently suggest reptilian or other strange animal allusions.

Bartnick has exhibited his paintings both nationally and internationally. He is currently on the faculty of the New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University and was a 2001 recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Balboni’s photographs have also been widely exhibited both in New York at the O.K. Harris Gallery and most recently her Big Dig images were shown at Boston City Hall.

Exhibit hours are from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Please note: The Gallery will be closed Friday, May 17th for a special event. The gallery is wheelchair accessible. For more information, contact Christine Kromer at 617-521-2268.