Photo Arts Show Sets Creative Minds in Motion

[caption id="attachment_74246" align="alignright" width="444"] "Motion" by Adam Baranello.[/caption]

By Michelle Trauring

Motion (noun): the action or process of moving or being moved

Day in and day out, Franki Mancinelli is surrounded by moving parts — printers, fellow employees at Hampton Photo Arts, and the welcomed frenzy of relocating the Bridgehampton Commons shop to 21 Windmill Lane in Southampton.

And, so, there was no better theme for the store’s annual art show than just that.

“Motion,” which marks the final show in a decades-long run at Ashawagh Hall in East Hampton, will open on Saturday, November 4, and continue through the weekend, exhibiting upwards of 50 artists and their interpretation of the theme.

“We are moving and we’re growing. We’re developing into a bigger and better thing, so the show is an expansion of that,” Mancinelli explained. “We like a theme to keep the show cohesive, but at the same time, that means its open to interpretation and makes the show interesting. We have literal interpretations, but we also have some artists doing paintings that are totally abstract, and still feel like motion without showing it.”

This is the case for her co-worker, Erick Osbaldo Segura, who was manning the quiet Southampton location last week, and will submit two of his acrylics on raw canvas for the art show.

“I basically do a lot of paintings on raw canvas, a lot of unprimed things. I just like the feel of the canvases. It just shows movement. A lot of my pieces are abstract and they fit into the theme so perfectly,” he said. “I’ve noticed recently that I’ve been so inspired just by conversations that I have with people. My mentor always tells me I have a photographic memory, in a sense, and I think that also translates to a lot of what people say to me, as well. And then I translate it into something visual, like my paintings.”

Mancinelli tapped two photos from a series she took over the summer in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was her first time visiting and felt fresh, she said, and captured what she calls “abstract moments of fragmented moments in time.”

“One image is of someone lying on a bed in a hotel room, but you view it through the mirror. The other image is a car parked in front of a restaurant, but it was shot from the inside of another restaurant, so you get the reflection of the window of what’s going on inside, as well as what’s happening outside,” she explained. “It’s more of a metaphorical sense of the term motion, dealing with how we overlook these moments in time that are often very beautiful, but we’re too focused on the extravagancies in life, rather than these subtle, quiet moments. “

Hampton Photo Arts will present its annual art show on Saturday, November 4, and Sunday, November 5, at Ashawagh Hall, located at 780 Springs Fireplace Road in East Hampton. For more information, please visit hamptonphotoarts.com.