Photography Exhibition by Gabrielle Sirkin at Westover's Schumacher Gallery

“Assembled,” an exhibition of photographic assemblages created by Westover School alumna Gabrielle Sirkin, will be on display in Westover’s Schumacher Gallery through Sunday, October 28th.

A member of Westover’s Class of 2005, Ms. Sirkin is the Studio and Fine Art Manager for world-renowned photographer Platon, whose political and celebrity portraits are consistently featured in Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker. Ms. Sirkin, who currently resides and works in New York City, is the daughter of Samuel and Shari Sirkin of Southbury, Connecticut.

According to Ms. Sirkin, “Assembled” is an ongoing series, with each assemblage “comprised of a number of individual images, some as few as 25 images and some as many as 75 images stitched together.” The work began in 2008 with the Kodak Building in Atlanta, Georgia, and brings together both notions of constructed memories and autobiographical experiences. Each photographic assemblage renders the original scene witnessed by the artist in a reimagined space with her inherently sardonic sense of humor. This exhibition marks the first time the majority of these works have been shown, as this is Ms. Sirkin’s first solo exhibition since returning from her travels overseas in England, Germany and Italy, as well as various locations around the United States.

The show also features several pieces from a series Ms. Sirkin created in collaboration with a late local artist, James McDowell, a young photographer who worked in Southbury and Brooklyn as a photojournalist and who unfortunately passed away before Ms. Sirkin had a chance to meet him. She was approached by his mother, Pat, who found while cataloguing her son’s work that many of his images could be assembled into a larger image. The sale of this collaborative artwork will be donated to the James McDowell Memorial Fund to support Aeries, a student publication of art and writing at the University of Hartford, for which James served as the senior editor.

While a senior at Westover, Ms. Sirkin was named Best High School Photographer in the United States for 2005 by the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. The award came with a $10,000 college scholarship; her award-winning works were exhibited at both the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, and the Diane von Furstenberg studio in New York City, and Ms. Sirkin was given the opportunity to discuss her photographic portfolio on stage in Carnegie Hall.

Ms. Sirkin received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design as well as a master’s degree in the History and Theory of Photography at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. During college, she participated in a number of group shows, both domestically and abroad. While working on her master’s degree, she wrote a dissertation on Helmut Newton, for which she was granted access to complete her research in the Archives of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, Germany.

An artist’s reception will be held in the Schumacher Gallery on Saturday, October 27th, from 3 to 5 pm. Those who wish to attend the reception are asked to call Michael Gallagher, Director of Exhibitions, at 203.577.4525.

The Schumacher Gallery is open Mondays through Fridays from noon until 5 pm and Saturdays from 1 to 5 pm; it is closed on Sundays. The Schumacher Gallery is located on South Street in Middlebury. Visitors must access the gallery at the main entrance of the School.

Westover is a selective boarding and day school with 205 students from 16 states and 17 countries. The School offers its students more than 20 Advanced Placement courses as well as signature programs in science, engineering, art history, and music.