Safe and Sound Gallery is tucked among other enterprises on the second floor of the Richardson Building in downtown Burlington. The modest space also serves as the office of Moderate Breeze Graphic Design Studio — “office” being a table, chair, computer and the creative wizardry of Tokyo-born Marin Horikawa. Lacking a Church Street-facing storefront, the gallery would likely be a revelation even to the caffeinated habitués of Kru Coffee downstairs.
“The experience of finding it is part of the show,” Charlotte-based artrepreneur Zach Pollakoff said of Safe and Sound. He has good reason for people to discover the gallery right now: He proposed its current exhibition of photography and, with Horikawa, selected the prints on view.
Unframed color images by nine Vermont photographers are tacked directly to the walls, with the artist’s name written in pencil below them. The informal presentation belies the quality and allure of the works, which were exquisitely printed at LeZot Camera in Burlington.
The prompt in an email sent to 40 professional photographers around the state was to depict “a raw, more accurate view of life in Vermont,” Pollakoff said — meaning avoid stereotypical cow-dotted landscapes. He and Horikawa looked for a different lens, literally and figuratively, on the state.
The curators chose images primarily because of the way they look together, Pollakoff noted. Though their subject matter varies wildly, what the photographs have in common is a sense of mystery. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but not every picture makes a viewer want to know its story. These do.
Neither the gallery nor the photographers offer explanations, however; ambiguity reigns — and provokes associations in the mind of the beholder.
A round, corrugated-metal building caught in a sunset glow by Nathanael Asaro is a man-made echo of Australia’s renowned Ayers Rock. His multiple exposure of a white moth zooming against a star-speckled sky could be a scene in “The X-Files.”
Two snowboarders are tiny figures on a mountaintop looking out at a vast sea of clouds in a stunning, otherworldly shot by Shem Roose — taken from an even higher perch. (Spoiler alert: It’s Mount Mansfield.)
An uncanny parallel is Corey Hendrickson‘s image of a blue muscle car presumably in race mode. Smoke billows from the vehicle and wafts across the frame, obscuring the upper body of a man standing by the track.
This is but one of the inherent “conversations” between images in the gallery. “It’s more about photography as a feel,” Horikawa said. “This connects to this; they feel nice together.”
Color itself is the subject of Daniel Schechner‘s cropped view of a parked car and a house — both an audacious purple. In contrast, Abbey Meaker‘s two images feature a single piece of furniture in an otherwise empty, gray room. Though the scenes are austere, the illumination is almost iridescent.
Even the portraits in this exhibit are enigmatic. Daniel Brooks‘ photo of a long-haired woman leaning on a pool table is suffused in Avatar-like blue light. Pollakoff’s picture of a friend’s young daughter* in Halloween mode — gossamer fairy wings and vampire teeth — conveys both the sweetness and fierceness of childhood imagination.
“As a photographer, one of my goals is to capture the emotion of what I do day-to-day,” Pollakoff said. “I take lots of pictures of my kids.”
This exhibition is cheekily titled “Vermont Photographers Club.” The artists do not actually comprise a club, but they could, Horikawa mused. All 13 photographers who submitted images are included in an 11-by-17-inch full-color zine, optimistically labeled “Vol. 1.” “I’m hoping to do a second show and involve more photographers in Vermont,” he said.
Pollakoff, a 2020 transplant from Brooklyn, is the executive producer of Heavy Duty Projects**, which provides music composition and supervision in advertising. He entered his adopted state’s arts scene by hosting multimedia events under the name Bauschaus VT. The photography exhibit at Safe and Sound, he said, is his fourth Vermont art venture. It will certainly not be the last.
“Vermont Photographers Club” is on view through September 7. Learn more at safeandsound.gallery.
Corrections: An earlier version of the story…
* Misidentified the parents of the child.
**Misidentified the name of the company where Polakoff is an executive producer.
This article appears in Aug 23-29, 2023.
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