Lynn Davis: Circulus

It's ArtsWalk in Hudson, and there is a rich and diverse assemblage of art on display all over the city. Of this bounty, one exhibition deserves special note: Circulus, a collection of photographs by Lynn Davis now being exhibited at Marianne Courville's Third Floor Gallery, at 341 Warren Street.

Lynn Davis is widely known for her monumental photographs depicting the natural and human landscape. In this exhibition, the shape of the circle links work from different series--photographs from different times and places that share a contemplative simplicity and sense of wonder. Whether abstract rims of a funerary tower with the sky as its center or the majestic and intricately patterned interior of an Iranian mosque’s tiled dome, the circle’s presence in each image is striking. The form reappears throughout, as in the empty center of an iceberg, the shape of a pagoda, or the roundness of the human head, yet is uniquely integral to each photograph’s subject and composition.

Davis's photographs have been exhibited internationally and collected widely. Her work appears in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which held an important exhibition of her photographs in 1999. She is currently exhibiting Modern Views of Ancient Treasures at Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Venezia, Italy.

The exhibition Circulus opened yesterday at The Third Floor Gallery and continues through November 25. An opening reception will take place next Saturday, October 13, from 6 to 8 p.m.