Vaune Trachtman and Rachel Portesi Exhibit at the Putney School’s Michael S. Currier Center

Acclaimed alternative-process photographers Vaune Trachtman and Rachel Portesi will exhibit their work at the Michael S. Currier Center from September 8 through October 29. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, September 22, from 4:30 to 6:30.

Trachtman and Portesi are Vermont-based artists who each use photographic processes that meld historic and contemporary technologies. Trachtman’s photogravures bring together cellphone imagery and archival negatives, while Portesi’s work ranges from tintypes to Polaroids, and includes film, 3D imagery, and sculpture. Thematic similarities in their work include the impact of family, the passage of time, and photography’s unrelenting gaze.

Both artists have received Creation Grants from the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. They will be available for a meet-and-greet at Putney School’s annual Harvest Festival, Sunday, October 8, from 2:30-3:30.

In the last 12 months, Trachtman has been a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 honoree, the People’s Choice Award Winner in Klompching Gallery’s Fresh Annual, a winner in Soho Photo’s International Alternative Processes Competition and the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, and the recipient of the Olcott Family Award in The Print Center’s International Competition. Her series “Now Is Always” was named a Top Portfolio by Rfotofolio and an Outstanding Work by the Denis Roussel Awards, and her series “Roaming” was shortlisted for the International Hariban Prize. Both series will be on display at the Currier Center. She is a graduate of The Putney School and lives in Brattleboro.

Portesi’s work in tintypes, Polaroids, film, and 3D imagery explores the nuanced transitions in female identity related to motherhood, aging, and choice. Her work has been exhibited throughout New England most recently at The Griffin Museum of Photography (MA), The Newport Art Museum (RI), and in New York at Freight+Volume Gallery. Portesi’s work has been featured in Vogue, Forbes, the Boston Globe, ArtNews, Musée, and many other journals. In 2022 Analog Forever magazine named her as one of the year’s top 40 analog photographers. She is featured in the new publication, “Counterculture in Contemporary Photography” alongside Putney’s own Sally Mann. In the spring of 2024 Portesi will debut a new work commissioned by the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT. Portesi lives in Saxtons River.

The Currier Center is on The Putney School campus at 418 Houghton Brook Road.