Eric Nichols (Communication) was one of nine artists from throughout New England to be awarded space in the Regional Showcase as part of The FENCE exhibit in Boston’s SoWa Market through December.
The FENCE is an annual large-scale open-air traveling photography exhibition in seven cities across the United States—Brooklyn, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Santa Fe, Durham, and Denver. In each city, the travelling exhibit couples with the regional one.
Each artist can show five photographs. Nichols’ images were culled from his series “Waiting,” engagingly inscrutable photographs shot inside his home. The series, which zeros in on small-scale items such as a contact lens case on top of a dresser or an empty drinking glass resting on a window sill, will be blown up into large scale images and printed on vinyl sheeting so they can be hung along a fence at SoWa.
Nichols’ deft handling of his subjects somehow lends the mundane items an air of significance. You find yourself looking and scratching your head—then feeling compelled to look again. The series can be seen on Nichols’ website.
“It was an honor, especially with some of the other artists involved,” Nichols said, about being selected. “Some of the bigger names in the area were on that list.”
Among those names are Caleb Cole, an award-winning visual and performing artist, and Jessie Burke, whom The New York Times Style Magazine named a top 5 to follow on Instagram. “Some of the galleries that they’re in are some of the ones I would want to represent me, so now all of a sudden it’s ‘Oh, this is, like, a thing,’ ” Nichols said.
The selection process was a very competitive one. “Almost everybody I know in the photography scene in New England applied for it, and there were a lot of gallery represented artists and stuff so it’s a really big honor,” he said.
Achievers
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