Jurors Erica Kelly Martin & Rollence Patugan Review of Series Winner - Beth Galton:
"The careful selection and arrangement of artifacts in this photography series convey deeply personal and significant stories. In "Passed from Generation", the objects in the foreground serve as visual notes on blank sheets of music, symbolizing how, like musical notes, these items bring life and meaning to the photograph. The composition suggests that these objects, much like music, are a form of expression and connection across time.
 
In "To Make Starch Stir Flour", the photograph highlights the central role of food in cultural traditions. The heirlooms passed down through generations—along with handwritten recipes and an embroidered cloth—evoke a sense of nostalgia, linking the viewer to another era. This piece underscores how food, much like music, can be a vital thread connecting people to their heritage.
 
Each photograph is thoughtfully composed to create a dialogue between the viewer and the image, inviting reflection on the significance of these personal objects. The series as a whole offers a visual narrative of tradition, memory, and cultural."
- Erica Martin Kelly
- Rollence Patugan

BETH GALTON says of her series, "MEMORY OF ABSENCE", "So much of who we are is passed from generation to generation—our genes, our behaviors - molded by our parents and grandparents. My mother’s relationship with her mother was fraught with difficulties and these same dynamics were passed onto me. I’ve spent many years contending with these issues by first becoming overly involved in my mother’s life and then ultimately removing myself.
 
In 2017, my mother and father - who had not lived together for 50 years by that time - died within three days of each other. After my sister and I inherited my mother’s home, we were startled to find the extent to which she had been hoarding. We discovered her journals, copious letters written to family members and never sent, everyday objects and photographs depicting many family scenes that I have no memory of. A profound sadness combined with these surprising discoveries led to my creating this body of work exploring feelings, memories and even buried memories – all brought to the surface through these revelations.

In this series, Memory of Absence, I combined botanicals and natural materials together with the everyday objects and family photographs in order to convey a sense of memory and loss. The organic and volatile botanicals serve as a reminder of the ever-changing nature of memory and emotions—an unstable and profoundly unreliable process, as fragile as scraps of embroidery as complicated and garbled as tangles of magnetic tape. Text plays a key role as well, her words intertwined with mine.

My creative process begins with composing and photographing a still life of the botanicals together with the objects that I have collected and saved from my mother’s home. I then print out the image, create yet another still life by layering more objects with the print and then re-photograph this composition. Thereby giving a further sense of the complex and layered emotions found within family dynamics."

Beth Galton is a photo-based artist, with an educational background in the natural sciences and three decades of experience as a professional photographer in the editorial and commercial arena. These elements of her history are the lens through which she explores the world.

Collecting objects, allowing time to affect botanical matter, these are the tools Beth uses to construct still life portraits. The stories speak to the cycles of nature, our connection to aging and mortality, and the fragility and resilience of the human experience. As a lifelong learner, Beth uses current technology to help articulate her message. She loves to harness natural light to capture the compositions by using a large format camera and digital back.

Beth’s fine art and professional work have won numerous accolades and been exhibited extensively throughout her career. Several of her personal projects have gained national and international regard.They have been seen at The Delaware Contemporary Museum, Wilmington Delaware, Montpellier Contemporian, Montpellier France, Wave Hill, Riverdale NY, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado, the Center for Photographic Art in California, Beth Urdang Gallery in Boston and was part of ‘The Fence’, a traveling outdoor exhibition shown in seven cities across the country.
Beth has received many awards, most recently the Sony World Photography award , 23rd Julia Margaret Camera award, FMoPA, IPA Awards, Graphis, Communication Arts and the PDN Taste Awards. Beth lives and works in New York City, where she is moved and inspired by the city every day. 

Images for sale
 
Broken record
Archival Ink Jet paper
Unframed $1500
20 x 16 inches
Edition of 10
Signed labels
 
Counting candles
Archival Ink Jet paper
Unframed $1500
20 x 16 inches
Edition of 10
Signed labels
 
Follow the path
Archival Ink Jet paper
Unframed $1500
20 x 16 inches
Edition of 10
Signed labels
 
I see myself reflected
Archival Ink Jet paper
Unframed $1500
20 x 16 inches
Edition of 10
Signed labels
 
Passed from generation
Archival Ink Jet paper
Unframed $1500
20 x 16 inches
Edition of 10
Signed labels
 
To make starch, stir flour
Archival Ink Jet paper
Unframed $1500
20 x 16 inches
Edition of 10
Signed labels
Beth Galton, beth@bethgalton.com
 
https://bethgalton.com
https://www.bethgaltonfineart.com

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EXHIBITION #1
https://laphotocurator.com/a-thousand-words-erica-kelly-martin-rollence-patugan/exhibition-1/1

EXHIBITION #2
https://laphotocurator.com/a-thousand-words-erica-kelly-martin-rollence-patugan/exhibition-2/1

EXHIBITION #3
https://laphotocurator.com/a-thousand-words-erica-kelly-martin-rollence-patugan/exhibition-3/1