The Fairfield Arts Council has their Artist of the Year and a reception on Saturday will include a short documentary about his work.
Thomas Mezzanotte is a photographer whose studio I’ve toured at the American Fabrics Building. It’s a little, shall we say, antique-y. He seems to reject any photo technology post-Matthew Brady. And the results are amazing, with more resonance than any Photoshop filter could supply.
“Mezzanotte reaches back in time using a photographic process steeped in history, from a time when recreating an image required an intuitive sense of how light interacts with chemicals,” reported the Greenwich Time, and I agree.
The reception will include a showing of an award-winning film, “Mezzanotte Obscura,” which about the artist’s life and work. See the trailer here. Tickets for the evening are $40.
An exhibit of Mezzanotte’s work will also be on display at the FAC gallery. It will include a series of photographs shot with the Century View, a large homemade camera made out of a dishwasher box, a magnifying glass, and a light fixture from Home Depot; and his own camera obscura.
Mezzanotte is a Bridgeport native and lives in Trumbull, according to the Time. He was educated at the University of Bridgeport, where he became the director of the Carlson Gallery in the late 1980s. He teaches in schools across Connecticut as a Connecticut Commission on the Arts master teaching artist.
Previous honorees include actor Keir Dullea, Grammy Award-winning jazz musician Dave Samuels, author Nicholas Rinaldi, rock musicians Tina Weymouth and Chris Franz of the Talking Heads, and last year’s honoree, dancer Elizabeth Gayner.
The award, established in 1976, is presented to “an artist in the visual, performing or literary arts who has made a significant contribution to his or her field and has demonstrated artistic excellence to the highest level.”
His exhibition, “Thomas Mezzanotte: The Autobiography of an Effort, An Introspective” runs Oct. 23-Nov. 27.