Featured image: Roadside Preacher, LaFollette, TN
December 8, 2018 – February 2, 2019
Rachel Boillot, recipient of the 2017 PhotoNOLA Review Prize, presents her series Moon Shine, in which she documents the traditions of music and faith and in the Appalachians.
The opening reception is SATURDAY December 15 at 6pm . At 7pm the same night, Rachel Boillot will be joined by Frish Brandt, President and Co-owner of Fraenkel Gallery, for a conversation about her work.
Moon Shineis a collection of photographs inspired by the unique musical traditions of the Cumberland Plateau. This region is home to a rich storytelling heritage, showcased in historic fiddle tunes, balladry, religious gospel pieces and other songs passed down as part of a formidable oral tradition. This project ultimately celebrates a place and the creative impulses it has fostered over history while also seeking to document a disappearing tradition.
-Rachel Boillot
Boillot’s artistic project, Moon Shine, utilizes the atemporal nature of the photograph to create a sensitive study of the Cumberland Plateau—a region in which matters of time are similarly deep-rooted. Boillot produces images ripe with sensory elements that reference the eternal forces of both nature and the religious afterlife, and confront the ultimate reality of mortal death. In the moonlit shadow of an ancient mountain range, time is measured by different metrics. Moon Shinecelebrates this difference, safeguarding a past for the present and future.
– Lisa Volpe, Assistant Curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX