York College Arts Gallery

Opened in 1989, the Gallery presents several professional exhibitions each year, ranging from solo and thematic group exhibitions to student shows at the close of each semester.

In Between Opposites

Reception, Wednesday, December 11, 5-7pm

York College Arts Gallery is proud to present  [In] Between Opposites, a two-artist exhibition featuring a wide range of new work by York’s own long time photography faculty, Sally Boon Matthews and Jennifer Formica. 

Each artist combines a variety of techniques to acheive their finished works. Some are traditional and labor intensive (hand embroidering texts, collecting materials/specimens for photograms) while others utilize contemporary technology (digital scanning or video editing). Neither employs traditional cameras or darkroom methods. 

And while each artist develops imagery from a unique set of concerns and interests and both use methods unique to each, there is a shared sensitivity to materials, light and environment that unites the work on display. Both artists ask the viewer to carefully and slowly observe each and every minute detail in a desire to slow the viewer down and impact how they sees, think and behave long after leaving the gallery.

The exhibition includes Formica’s brand new series of brilliantly colored photograms and intensely detailed chromogenic prints created using natural materials (plants, grasses and algaes) as well as manmade pollutants found on local beaches.

Matthews has created a dark, soothing isolation and mediation space inside the gallery where a selection of her atmospheric videos will play continuously. Outside this space, she will also present a large drawing using hand stitched texts and images

Artist Biographies

Jennifer Formica is a photographic artist based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

She holds a B.F.A. in Photography from the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, Connecticut, and an M.F.A. in Photography from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States and internationally. Notable exhibitions include Flora-Fauna at the Islip Art Museum in Islip, New York; WOWbug & Other Micro-Nature at Khaki Gallery in Boston; She Blinded Me with Science at Gallery 138 in New York, New York; Micro Nature at the Pelham Art Center in Pelham, New York; and See Nymph at Monohoro Gallery in Athens, Greece. 

Formica’s vibrant color photography has been featured in Robert Hirsch’s books Light & Lens: Photography in the Digital Age and Exploring Color Photography: From Film to Pixels. One of her photographs, COVID-19 Discarded Glove with Spring Blossoms, was displayed in the exhibition #ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis at the International Center of Photography in New York. 

Her work has also been published in The New Yorker, BBC, The Boston Globe, Buffalo News and City Journal. She was awarded the Oseroff Memorial Purchase Prize by the CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, New York.

Sally Boon Matthews is a British-born and educated visual artist and educator living in New York City. 

She received a Foundation Degree in Art, and a Diploma in Art and Design (Honours) from The Arts University Bournemouth, UK, (formally Bournemouth and Poole College of Art).   

Further graduate studies include history and philosophy at Boston University and Columbia Teachers College.

Her work has been exhibited and published in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Publications include Tricycle Magazine: The Buddhist Review, NY Times, Blitz Magazine, Penguin Books, Random House, A&M Records, Blitz Magazine, Om Yoga, Warner Books, British Journal of Photography, Battersea Museum of Art, UK, Galerie Solado, Caracas, Venezuela, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Louisiana Museum of Art. Chateau de Trousse-Barriere, Briare, France, and Jamaica Arts Centre, NY. USA