Summer’s Waning & Botanical Regenerations

Meg Birnbaum

Meg Birnbaum has won a wide range of awards for her photographs. Works have been shown at The Somerville Museum, Willoughby & Baltic Gallery, The Newton Free Library, Holyoke Center at Harvard University and included in the fall 2005 issue of The Harvard Review. Birnbaum was the first place winner of a national juried all-media show at Fitton Center for Creative Arts, Hamilton OH. All of the photographs appearing in the Belmont Gallery show were hand printed using a traditional wet darkroom. Images of Birnbaum’s work can be found here.

This show at the Belmont Gallery incorporates two different bodies of work. Summer’s Waning is the newest series. Says Birnbaum: “In these photographs I hope to revive summer memories, the mysteries, the magic and wonder. July holds such promise and possibility but August brings the growing anxiety of summer half over, of goodbyes and endings. August is a state of mind warmly intertwined with nature’s essential elements.”

Of the other series Botanical Regenerations, Birnbaum says “It is about the biological process – a curious beauty won by stamina, resiliency and endurance in the service of a reproductive imperative. By removing these objects from their natural environments and presenting them center stage, I hope to grant even the most humble of subjects the quiet grandure it deserves. The scale of the prints provides the viewer a larger-than life intimate view of these commonly overlooked natural objects.”