For Immediate Release:

Jay Grimm Gallery at 505 West 28th Street, New York, will hold a three-person exhibition from December 9, 1999 through January 15, 2000, of photographs by Marianne Courville, Meghan Gerety and Alexandra Rowley. The curator of the exhibition is Linda Fiske. There will be an opening at the gallery on Thursday, December 9^th, from 6 to 8 P.M.

The three artists use photographs to link landscape with emotions. While their techniques range from traditional to experimental, the artists share an interest in the narrative possibilities of still imagery.

The work of Marianne Courville juxtaposes images and words to create competing yet complementary narratives. Superimposed along the bottom of color photographs are phrases drawn from a letter Courville's brother-in-law wrote to her husband on the occasion of their engagement. In the letter, the brother-in-law, an Orthodox rabbi, expresses his opposition to the marriage because Courville is not Jewish. The fragmented texts suggest, but do not detail a deep conflict between love, pain and loyalty. The photographs, alternatively quirky and haunting, were taken while Courville traveled with her husband. The six works in the exhibition, drawn from a larger series, offer a kind of 'mix and match' grid of mini-stories on both a verbal and visual level, as well as a glimpse into the power of metaphor for our most complex emotions.

Meghan Gerety's work concentrates on the formal qualities of natural vistas and the emotive power of the subjects therein. The photographs in this exhibition are from a low-tech video created while walking in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. The video captures were made into 9 x 7-inch Iris prints and mounted on masonite. Hung together in a single line, the fuzzy, foggy images can be read as a seamless abstract narrative or as fragmented parts of a puzzle. The brooding, grainy quality of the images presents a meditative, painterly nature study.

Alexandra Rowley will exhibit color coupler prints of the ocean in various states of calm and agitation that present a tableau of compositions and moods. Aesthetic appreciation mingles with visceral pleasure in viewing these images of the sea. Rowley has stated that she made the pictures out of an awe for the ocean's complexity and vastness and her desire to 'hold' it, even if momentarily. Closely cropped with no horizon, the composition and tonal variations of the work allow Rowley to communicate these feelings to her audience.

Linda Fiske, formerly a director of PaceMacGill is a New York-based independent curator and arts administrator.

Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11-7 P.M. The gallery will be closed from December 25 through January 4^th. Please contact the Gallery at 212.564.7662 for images and additional information.