Excavations

Works by psychoanalyst/photographer Gould explore memories from other times and places

NARROWSBURG, NY — An exhibition of landscape photographs by Edith Gould entitled “The Archaeology of Memory” will open at the Alliance Gallery on Friday, March 28, with an artist’s reception from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. The exhibit will be on view through April 19.

“I have always loved archaeology,” said Gould, who is a psychoanalyst as well as a photographer, and who has traveled the planet in search of places of ruin to capture haunting black and white images of ancient temples, our now fragile icebergs, shimmering rivers and old growth trees. “Landscape reflects and mirrors one’s sense of self,” she said. “It evokes private memory and the collective memories of civilization.” But it is the parallel between her art and her clinical practice that most interests her. “As in my analytic explorations with my patients, I use the camera as a probe, to yield up some small element, a visual voice of a culture or an epoch that has disappeared.”

It is a parallel that had also been observed by Sigmund Freud, who said, “The psychoanalyst, like the archaeologist in his excavations, must uncover layer after layer of the patient’s psyche, before coming to the deepest, most valuable treasures.”

Gould, who has studied at the International Center for Photography, as well as privately with a number of well-known photographers such as Mary Ellen Mark, splits her time between New York City and Long Eddy. “I’ve traveled around the world,” she said. “But some of my favorite images were taken in the fields behind my farmhouse in Long Eddy or on the Delaware riverbank in Hankins.”

The Alliance Gallery is located at the Delaware Arts Center at 37 Main Street. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

For more information visit ArtsAllianceSite.org or call 845/252-7576.