Rebecca Buonopane

What is your senior thesis?

My project is a reflection of my travels from the summer of 2009 up until now. I have been staying with family and friends mainly in the New England area, bouncing around from Boston to Lowell, MA, to Nashua, NH, Deer Isle, ME, Martha’s Vineyard, MA and Long Island, NY. This series depicts my transitory states, both my physical location and state of mind. In order to make an unfamiliar place feel like home, I look for the inconspicuous details of a place, a person, object, or even gesture that suggest an elusive history, yet invariably possess an essence of character. When I am “home,” my apartment in Boston, or my father’s house, I reexamine what I believe represents my identity. Without limiting my subject matter, I instinctually photograph what is around me, what emerges is not only evidence of where I’ve been and whom I’ve met but the phenomenon in which intuition and circumstance converge.

What motivated you to start this project? What inspires your creative process?

I wanted to photograph more spontaneously. When I used a large format camera to photograph my twin sister and myself, everything was very scheduled. I get inspired by every place I go and every person I encounter, so I love having the freedom to shoot whenever the mood strikes.

Do you work in film or digital? Please describe any technique or process relevant to your project.

I always shoot in color. Usually, I use medium format film, but sometimes I shoot with a digital camera as well. I print digitally whether I use film or not.

Is this a new project or a continuation of previous work?

This is a completely new project.

How has your work developed or changed over time?

My past two projects, photographing my grandmother’s house and self-portraits with my twin sister, have both been based on the passage of time. My grandmother’s house had been redecorated only once in 1952; I was amazed by how it never seemed to change. I started the portraiture project with my sister to explore the different dynamics of our relationship after we moved out of our parents’ house. Time is still a thread that runs through my art. My current work emphasizes the transience of life and appreciating the moment.

What artists or works of art have inspired or influenced you?

My grandmother, Jane Ritchie, is the most influential artist in my life. She was a landscape painter based in Long Island, NY. Painters like Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, and Mary Cassatt also inspire me. Photographers I have been looking at lately are Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Rinko Kawauchi, Marni Horwitz, and Helen Van Meene. Books also really influence my work. Right now, I am reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse.

What kind of response do you hope to get from your viewers? Is there a certain experience you want people to take away from your photographs?

I’d like for people to spend some time looking at my photographs and let everything else melt away, to be fully present when they are standing in front of them. My work is about deeply seeing, so I hope that people can enter into my photographs and experience that.

What is the ideal setting to view your work? Do you picture your photographs in a book? In a gallery?

A gallery would be the best setting. I’d like my photographs to exist on a larger scale so the viewer can observe all the details of the image.

Do you have any ideas or plans for future work?

I have lots of new ideas but nothing fully developed right now.

What do you see yourself doing after graduation?

I want to go to grad school, but I plan on taking a few years off first. In the meantime, I’d like to travel and see where life takes me.