Donna Gordon is the 2025 Denis Roussel Award recipient.
“Lovely work and beautifully crafted. I was immediately focused on the young woman in a garden at the end of a working day, outlined with diffused light and a mountain in the background which has the contours of the one that we live on in our Dublin, NH studio. The woman presents herself directly to the observer, immersed in the nature and abundant growth, feather in hand, she meets the viewer’s gaze with considerable confidence, neither performative or passive but content in the perfection of that time and place. Her smile is beatific, knowing, for me like the way it feels returning home after a long time away… a return to nature perhaps. This subject of this particular image, like others in the portfolio, is timeless. The presentation of the subject defines through its ambiguity and openness to viewer interpretation, the cyclical nature of the garden, connection to the earth and confidence in a secure feminine identity, the place itself and all that it represents. She represents, for me, the feel of satisfying labor tending the garden. The power of this image is in its restraint and the slow-burn of that beautiful moment.
The single image that occupies its own meaning is the interior still-life with its layering of traditional meanings and references… in both the pose of the primary subject and the environment the subject occupies. Unlike the majority of images in the portfolio, this image incorporates classical memes such as the posed demur nude, the white horse, the artist’s studio (the paintbrushes) and what appears to be the edge of a Steinway grand piano. At the same time, nature is brought inside as inspirational prompts for re-creation and interpretation. This image is different from the majority and appears to signal the artist’s dichotomy of interest, treasuring the exterior landscape with the same intensity of the more abstracted internal one.
The last image I will reference is the one of the woman consumed and camouflaged by her floral-patterned dress and the light and shadows of the frenetic natural world. For me, it immediately brought to mind the spring season when all living organisms are hell-bent on rebirth and procreation and nothing is calm. When considering the image, I was thinking about Stravinsky’s 1913 avant-garde performance of The Rite of Spring and its parallel with the first minutes of David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet when the idyllic identity of a suburban neighborhood or the familiar progression of notes in a musical score are fractured and shattered beyond control. In this image there is a duality of urgency and chaos in tandem with peaceful light, stillness and calm. The viewer is given the opportunity of making the critical decision of how to see and experience the image.
This body of work is grounded in myth and meaning and is a satisfying experience for me as a visitor to the work.” Christopher James Here is our interview of Donna Gordon.
Would you please tell us about yourself?
I ‘m a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based photographer and printmaker focused on portrait and figurative subjects. I’m also a fiction writer, and published my first novel, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me, (Regal House) in 2022. As a child, there was nothing better than a sharpened pencil and a piece of newsprint. That tactile quality of making marks on paper whether in photographs, photogravures, or alternative processes–are all an attempt to connect the created object with the human hand.
Where did you get your photographic training?
I don’t have a degree in photography, but have taken workshops to learn how to work with historic and alternative processes. I graduated from Brown as a creative writing major and then went to Stanford as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. I was writing poetry and fiction. And thinking visually. I got my first camera when I was about 30. It was an Olympus OM 1. I worked at a private high school outside of Boston and was asked to photograph the kids at their plays and musicals. The school paid for the camera and a darkroom class at nearby DeCordova Museum. My first self-initiated documentary project was with Amnesty International. I interviewed and photographed fifteen people from all over the world who had been political prisoners and who were on Amnesty’s speakers’ list. “Putting Faces on the Unimaginable,” portraits with captions was shown at Harvard’s Fogg Museum.
Who has had an influence on your creative process?
Photographers Graciela Iturbide, Lee Miller, Duane Michaels. Printmakers Kathe Kollwitz, Goya, Blake, Rauschenberg, Michael Mazur. And so many others.
A portrait is a story of human character interpreted through light and shadow. It has as much to do with emotion as it does with geometry. It’s a kind of intentional coincidence—a coming together of what’s seen and unknown—and the tension between the two.
Before learning to create photogravures, I made a large series of paper lithographs, “Double Vison,” for which I transferred my photographs onto pronto plates and used liquid gum Arabic and water to make the transfer onto BFK Rives. Around that time, I took a workshop at Maine Media and learned about Ink Aid products—their transfer film and Transferiez medium. Last summer I went to Cone Editions in Vermont and learned to use Green Mountain plates to make photogravures.
Please tell us about an image (not your own) that has stayed with you over time.
Käthe Kollwitz’s self- portrait, 1934, crayon and brush lithograph. Several of her self-portraits stay with me, but this is one I first saw when I was a teenager and have never forgotten the intensity and the ways in which I perceived her eyes made contact with mine. I love the gritty quality of her work, whether print, drawing, or sculpture.
What image of yours would you say taught you an important lesson?
Last winter, I took some leaps of faith with a very large composition that combined photo transfer and solar plate etching. The piece is maybe 54 inches long and 40 inches high and printed on Kitakata. I hadn’t pre-planned the combination and was moving things around on the glass counter top in the printmaking studio. Eventually, the composition quietly built itself because I trusted the fact that I didn’t know where it was going. I kept moving shapes around until it felt right. Meaning is sometimes like that—recognizable after the fact.
Please tell us about the work you submitted to Denis Roussel Award.
The seven photogravures are all part of “In the Garden,” begun as a series of photographs of
contemporary women—including trans, lesbian, and others-meant to refute the stereotype of Eve in the Garden of Eden. As much as it’s a political statement, it’s really about individuals. I’m fascinated by each of the faces and the stories behind them.
What part of image-making do you find the most rewarding?
Choosing a powerful image to work with. Then setting up technical specifications properly so that an intuitive flow can happen once work has started. Getting the tools right, ink and paper. Setting the pressure on the press. It’s often a wordless beginning, seemingly without strategy, but the choices and intent make themselves known during the process. Printing the best image can take some time through trial and error of inking and wiping. Deciding when the plate is ready to print, trusting the moment.
How do you work through times when nothing seems to work?
For technical problems, I retrace my steps and check to make sure I’ve prepared my materials correctly. Things can go wrong if there’s a wrinkle in a sheet of newsprint or a snag in a roller or brayer, or if timing is off if I’m working on a photo transfer or photogravure.
In terms of the image itself, sometimes it’s hard to evaluate. A piece of something might be working, or it may lead to rethinking about the way things fit or don’t fit together. Stepping back is always a good idea.
What tools have you found essential in the making of your work?
I rent studio time at Mixit Printmaking Studio in Somerville, Massachusetts. I use the French Tool Press and Green Mountain plates developed by Jon and Cathy Cone of Cone Editions in Vermont. These photopolymer plates are easy to work with. I like Hahnemühle Copper Plate for printing. For photo transfer and monotype, I like to use a roll of Agawami Kitakata and cut things to size for large pieces.
Is there something in photography that you would like to try in the future?
I’d like to make a large photogravure plate with several figures that would look like a sort of Roman frieze. It’s something I’ve tried drawing.
How does your art affect the way you see the world?
I’m a very visual person and am often distracted by what I see. I’ve become a bit shameless when I see someone whose look is incredibly interesting and I want to try to capture that with the camera. I sometimes feel greedy and extroverted when I ask if I can photograph them, when I’m really not like that most of the time.
What’s on the horizon?
My goal is to create a book of photogravures from “In the Garden.” So far, I’ve photographed about 35 indivduals and I’m hoping to increase the range and diversity before sitting down to curate. I’m looking for a publisher.
Thank you Donna.
To learn more about the work ofDonna Gordon please click on her name.
