Seasonal resident Brooke Bartletta’s photography exhibition, hosted by the Featherstone Center for the Arts at the Feldman Family Artspace of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center, is an homage to the Island she has loved for some 20 years. Bartletta looks at the Island with an artistic vision — as she says, “wandering the Island, looking for things that attract my eye.” The show revels in the Vineyard’s water and shores, narrowing in on details that reveal her keen eye and aesthetic.
Photography has been an integral part of Bartletta’s life since childhood. “I always loved photography,” she says. “We traveled a lot, and I think it was important to document the places to keep as memories of each location we lived in and went to. I never studied art or took a formal class; it just came to me naturally.” When she had children, Bartletta focused on capturing them and those of others. After a time, she moved on, and then discovered and studied with Vineyard photographer, teacher, and mentor Alison Shaw. “I really credit Alison and Sue Dawson for helping me discover my own artistry, and giving me the confidence to really go out and pursue it with abandon,” Bartletta says.
Taken as a whole, Bartletta’s art is enigmatic in that it holds subtle dualities. While — with only one exception — Bartletta’s photographs are devoid of figures, they all reflect a human presence. Intriguingly, the pieces likewise seem at once quiet, but their formal elements make them vibrate with energy. And although the subject matter is immediately recognizable, the compositions can simultaneously dissolve into abstractions of color, shape, and form.
We immediately see this in two intimate, tight portraits of circular ring buoys suspended on the sides of watercraft in Menemsha that bookend the exhibition. In each, the boldly colored lifesaving device plays off the quieter background of the vessel on which it hangs. Bartletta alters our perspective from looking straight on to peering down at our feet in her closely cropped close-up of a tightly coiled rope in “Flemish Flake,” which lies flat against a dock. Bartletta has washed the background of color so that the black-and-white vertical woodgrain recedes, allowing the brown-speckled rope to propel our gaze into a pleasing spiral motion.
The giant tower in “Lifeguard Stand” sits amid a field of blowing beach grass whose rough texture contrasts with the structure’s flat, smooth, wooden surface. The anonymous lifeguard atop, with his back to us, echoes the stand’s sturdy presence. Seen from down low, the surrounding sky locks the composition in place. Bartletta chose to print the piece in black-and-white because to her, it felt timeless, taken in any year. Right next to the work is the vivacious “Blue + Red Canoe,” with the boat pulled just up onto the beach at Tisbury Great Pond, which is another of her favorite locations. Although the vessel rests sedately on shore, she has masterfully created a picture that is full of movement. Bartletta took the picture from a lying-down position, here creating the sense that the bow is thrusting forward into our space with a vigor that is enhanced by the splash of white on the bottom portion of the canoe that is reminiscent of the crest of a breaking wave. The irregular, granular sand in the foreground, disturbed by the feet of many passersby, infuses a supporting dynamism.
The solidly planted buildings in two impressively large photographs, “Cabana I” and “Cabana II,” taken on Cow Bay, convey a quintessential Vineyard winter scene. The slant of the light and neutral tones of every element immediately signal the season’s harsh weather. Bartletta positions us in front of these buildings, propelling our gaze straight back through the large, window-shaped voids to the calm, still vista in the distance, while the blowing beach grass at our feet is full of motion.
The top half of the vertically stacked lifeguard surfboard in “To the Rescue” stands erect, looming over us while piercing the cloudless blue sky. The Red Cross plus-sign symbol locks the composition in place. In contrast is “Sail,” a small square photograph in which Barletta moves in so close we see every ripple and crease in the particular section of cloth. She says of the work, “It felt alive to me.” With our eyes we feel the very texture of the sail, and, in fact, this sensual quality runs throughout Bartletta’s art. She not only looks for texture in her subject matter but physically adds it by printing on watercolor paper, which has its own varied surface.
“They are an homage to my home, and a reflection of who I am,” Bartletta says about the work. “The show is really a journal of my love for the Vineyard. Some of the things I love most about the Island, from the cabanas to Menemsha to the ponds to the beach. There’s just so much variety out here, and it feels so authentic, classic, timeless. I hope that the show will remind people of a place where they feel the most at peace.”
Brooke Bartletta’s exhibition is on view through July 16 at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center.
For more information, visit brookebartletta.com and Instagram @brookebartletta.