Roy Money

Most people recognize Roy‘s work as nature photography, but for him, the natural world is not one apart from us but one that is all-inclusive. Photographing affords a way of exploring the existential interdependence we share with all manner of animate and inanimate matter. This elemental and primordial quality of the “more than human” continues to command his attention. Mind and nature conventionally refer to divergent concepts in western thought but can also point to a fundamental unity in which many earlier cultures have placed great value. His photographs are an attempt to explore that broader sensibility.

Roy’s work is informed by growing up in the rural South, experience with meditation, and interest in phenomenology. His general approach is contemplative, looking and listening for how the innumerable multiplicities of creation can manifest and solicit attention. His recurring challenge is the development of a fuller awareness and its transformation into compelling expressions. When he goes out with a camera, one of the most critical issues is psychological: navigating the invisible barrier between perceiver and perceived. When this dualistic framing of perception is omitted, the subject matter can suggest intimations of wholeness in the world – where affinity is accompanied by expanse.

Roy completed an MFA in photography at the University of Delaware and taught photography at several schools before and after the MFA. His work has been exhibited in solo and group shows at the Tennessee Historical Commission, Nashville, TN, Janvier Gallery, Newark, DE, John Hancock Center in Chicago, IL, Hamden Hall Country Day School, European Café, Artspace, New Haven Lawn Club, Silk Road Art Gallery, West Cove Gallery, and George St Gallery in New Haven, Mary Daly Art Gallery, Madison, CT Barratt Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, Ridgefield Art Center, Ridgefield, CT, Weir Farm, Wilton, CT, PhotoPlace Gallery Middlebury, VT and Darkroom Gallery in Essex Junction, VT.

The Gallery at the Blake Hotel curated by KLG
May 1 - July 31, 2022

One form of ‘esc’ape is the psychological freedom of creativity, whether as a producer or consumer. Offered here is an opportunity to enter the visual world of three different photographers exploring the unpredictable to expand their awareness and the various places that have captured their expressive efforts.

Forest - Wander
April 21 -May 22, 2022

In this show Roy Money presents a series of framed photographs, comprising tree environments that are both spiritually and physically close to home. Money marvels that he “has not yet found a better place for my camera work than wandering in the woods. I have strayed near and far, as far as I can go, but these pictures are from a neighborhood park.” 

One portion of Money’s oeuvre intentionally lacks focus as it “evolved out of a chance event ten years ago, when I followed a conventional exposure of birch trees with one involving intentional camera movement. I found the result more commensurate with my experience and was astonished. In the case of these pictures, the subject matter is blurred because of the camera movement. I  think of the blurred boundaries as a displacement of my animation by the subject back to the source. There is no sharp separation between us as it has occupied me. The blur expresses my acknowledgment of its capacity to move me and a bow to its presence.”