Nadine Boughton “American Home”
United Photo Industries
[Image: © Nadine Boughton "Sea Adventures" (2011) (True Adventures in Better Homes Series)]
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American Home takes a long look at mid-century America, a culture where men returned home from war, mass consumption and advertising proliferated, and gender roles were set in stone. Women as homemakers created an attitude of “everything is fine,” while men wore executive suits, or dripped with sweat in confronting danger. Boughton’s collages use imagery from vintage materials to explore the psychology, politics and polarities of the period.
American Home presents work from two series. In True Adventures in Better Homes the 1950’s men’s adventure magazines (called “sweats”) collide with the cool, orderly homes depicted in women’s magazines of the same era. These rich artifacts of popular culture can be be seen as narratives from the collective psyche. Boughton wanted to show the underbelly of anxiety in the age of McCarthyism, where danger lurked in every corner, and its presence in our contemporary era.
In Fortune and the Feminine, the second series, Boughton’s focus is on gender polarities. Advertisements in Fortune magazine depicted (and still do) men’s world of wealth, industry and big ideas. Women’s magazines centered on the home with all its flowing fabrics, sensuality and a dreamy interiority. The artist’s intention is to deconstruct these images of mid-century advertising, creating narratives of ambiguity with humor and a dark edge. The narratives explore the different relationships men and women have to power, beauty and longing.
Boughton’s interest is to create what collage does best — presenting the pulsing tension between opposites. American Home presents the borderland between interior and exterior spaces, wildness and domesticity, order and chaos, archetype and cliche, and the worlds of men and women.
Nadine Boughton is a collage artist and photographer. Her collages use imagery from vintage magazines of the 1950’s to explore the psychology, politics and polarities of mid-century America.
Boughton was selected for the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 in 2011, 2013 and 2014. Her work has been exhibited widely, including Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY; Candela Books + Gallery, Richmond, VA; JoAnne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA; Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA; and GuatePhoto in Guatemala. She was an IRIS lecturer at The Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, CA. Nadine’s work is represented by Trident Gallery, Gloucester, MA.
Boughton grew up in Rochester, NY, under the shadow of George Eastman’s Kodak Tower. She studied photography with Garry Winogrand, and at Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY, and Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. She currently lives in Gloucester, MA.
Media
Schedule
from December 03, 2015 to January 30, 2016
Opening Reception on 2015-12-03 from 18:00 to 21:00