Exhibits
2010
Layerings: A Glimpse of Southeast Asia, Solo Exhibit, Maryland Hall, Annapolis, MD (portfolio)
Glass Transformed, Solo Exhibit, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Dennis, MA
Glass Transformed, Solo Exhibit, Packard Reath Gallery, Lewes, DE.
Image and Imagination, Group Exhibit, Best in Show Award, St. John's Mitchell Gallery, Annapolis, MD
Into the Light, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
2009
American Photographs from the 1950's till Now: The Collection in Focus, Group Show, permanent collection of the Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD
2008
Sea Glass: The Art Photography of Celia Pearson, by the New Bedford Museum of Glass, at the Sandwich Glass Show, Sandwich, MA
Untitled, Group Exhibit of Selected Architectural Photographers celebrating FOTOWEEK DC, Cross MacKenzie Ceramic Arts, Washington, DC.
Things That Grow, Solo Exhibit, Annapolis Collection Gallery, Annapolis, MD
2007
Things of This World, Solo Exhibit, Arts Council of Anne Arundel County, Annapolis, MD
Pure Sea Glass, Solo Exhibit, East End Gallery, Nantucket, MA
LifeLines, Solo Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MDLifeLines, Solo Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
2006
Kaleidoscopic, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
The Landscape, Group Exhibit, Mulry Fine Art, West Palm Beach, FL
Pure Sea Glass, Solo Exhibit, Rogers Gallery, Mattapoisett, MA
Gatherings, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
Sequences and Consequences, Group Exhibit Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
2005
Unwrapped, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
Sea Glass, Solo Exhibit, Packard Reath Gallery, Lewes, DE
Spectrum, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
Art on Paper, Juried Group Exhibit, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD
Traces, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
Spring Show, Group Exhibit, Packard Reath Gallery, Lewes, DE
By the Board, Group Exhibit, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD
Still in the Moment, Solo Exhibit, TAI Sophia Institute, Laurel, MD
Sea Glass, Solo Exhibit, Aurora Gallery, Annapolis, MD
Introducing Celia Pearson, Solo Exhibit, Jayson 15, Washington, DC
2004
Shaped by Wind and Water, Small Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
Pure Sea Glass, Solo Exhibit, Packard Reath Gallery, Lewes, DE
Latitudes - Mind & Matter, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
Celia Pearson Photographs, Exhibition & Benefit for Hospice, Solo Exhibit, 49 West Gallery, Annapolis, MD
Winter Exhibition, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
2003
Group Exhibit, Headquarters, National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC
Spring Art Loop, Group Exhibit, Packard Reath Gallery, Lewes, DE
Landscape: A Unique View, Small Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
Beach, Group Exhibit, Packard Reath Gallery, Lewes, DE
Summer, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
2002
A Moveable Feast, Group Exhibit, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD
Interiors, Small Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
September, Group Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery, Chestertown, MD
1999-2001
Small Works, Group Exhibit, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD
Untitled, Small Group Exhibit, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD
Art on Paper, Juried Group Exhibit, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD
Artist Statements
2010 Layerings: A Glimpse of Southeast Asia, Maryland Hall
Creating this exhibit was a labor of love - joyful, exciting, compelling, and now and then arduous, intimidating. I would describe the journeys that were its inspiration the same way. These two journeys changed me. How is not easy to put into words. A friend said recently, "You dare differently now."
I was in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam) in 2008 and 2009 - two explorations of three weeks each. Even though I was there for a brief period of time I felt such depth not only in the places and their people but also in my response to them, so the title "Layerings" seemed right.
There have been many firsts in this exhibit. I had never created a montage before, but half way through the first trip I realized that might be a way to express the complexity and the vibrancy I was experiencing. Another first was the use of silks and rice paper. I realized that the transparency of these materials could help express my sense of layerings, and that the natural motion of the silks would echo the remarkable vitality so evident everywhere I went. None of the work is framed. Another first. To box in these moments seemed the antithesis to what they were about. My experience was of immediacy, of everything open to the air, of fluidity.
I did not do this alone. There has always been a large cast of characters at my back without whom none of this would be. Thank you all.
2010 Glass Transformed, Cape Cod Museum of Art, Packard Reath Gallery
Broken shards of glass are gradually rounded and their surfaces etched by the action and the pH of the sea. Glass transformed. Collectors find sea glass on the beach, take it home, attach a history to it, invest it with memories, or see it as a symbol about journeys. Glass transformed.
I came to experience sea glass as a photographer rather than a collector. I have always been compelled by its physical beauty. Part of the beauty of sea glass is that it has its own light. Light makes these bits of sea glass come alive. I am VERY attracted to this. When I look at the images I have made, I notice that they are often about balance, order, harmony. I see this glass not only through the lens of my camera but also through the lens of my own particular passions. Glass transformed.
The possibility for transformation has yet another layer. Regardless of how they came to be, you will see these images through the lens of your own particular passions, and thereby they will be, once again, transformed.
2010 Image & Imagination, S. John's Mitchell Gallery
While I love the beauty I witness all around me, I am as compelled by something I cannot see as much as that which I can see. We have many names for it - energy, ch'i, life force, God, spirit. Can a photograph record what cannot be seen? I have an affinity for photographing with my camera only inches from my subjects. It's as though I'm convinced that the closer I get, the more the surface will dissolve and I might, maybe, just maybe, somehow see inside and touch the miracle, touch the spirit within these things.
2007 LifeLines Exhibit, Carla Massoni Gallery
To visit the Carla Massoni Gallery is often to feel a sense of sanctuary. I can breathe, find myself exhaling. The places that draw me to them with my camera in hand are a similar experience. The sanctuary of a well known shore, a field, a garden, a path to the sea, a greenhouse, a wood, a marsh—I can breathe in these places. A door opens to being present, fully absorbed.
I venture close in order to photograph what I feel. These bits of shell and stone, glass, rock, leaf, reed, and blossom become my lifeline to spirit, and so, in turn, the world becomes my lifeline to you.
2006
For thirty years I have been standing behind my camera looking at things and my photographs are a journal of my observations of the world about me. I am summoned by my subjects—stones and plants, shells and sea glass, facades, interiors—for reasons I do not fully understand.
My images have generic names—"Vase", "Clam Shells", "Amaryllis"—because I feel I am photographing something that really cannot be named. Artist Anne Truitt writes in Daybook that life presents to her "external equivalents for truths which I already in some mysterious way know." Similarly, my subjects seem to be my way into something profound, which I recognize and discover simultaneously. I lead and am led. Perhaps viewers in turn witness a truth, perhaps very different from mine, but one which they, too, recognize and discover simultaneously. It is as though we are each forever learning what we already know.
2005
The photographs I currently am making for exhibition seem to dance somewhere between the representational and the abstract. Even in my assignment photography when I am looking at an interior or a garden I am seeing shapes and lines and weight, texture, color, light, and how they work to form a whole within the boundaries of my chosen frame. As I am making images, they seem only secondarily to be about structures, or rooms, or plants, or shells and stones, or sea glass.
My process is an exercise I have been repeating for years behind the camera. I explore angles of view and choose one. Adjust and readjust the tripod as I refine the limits of my frame. I decide about point of focus and depth of focus, discover and accept the constraints of the camera, resolve issues of lighting, look and look and look again through the viewfinder. Fully absorbed in this process, I am seeking something. I know I have found it when my mind stills, I exhale, and wonder once again takes over.