Vicki McKenna + Chris Plunkett

March 30-April 24, 2022

SoWa First Friday Art Walk: Friday, April 1, 2022, 5–8PM
Event: Instagram Live, April 19, 7-9pm

“Outlook” presents landscapes both personal and communal. Through the intertwining of light and composition we can recognize what the familiar has to offer. The powerful color of Chris Plunkett’s oil paintings and the atmospheres of Vicki McKenna’s black and white photographic prints celebrate the commonplace. They ask you to forego the preconditioned expectations of scenic grandeur and uncover interest in the everyday.

PRESS RELEASE (PDF)➢

McKENNA PRICE LIST➢

PLUNKETT PRICE LIST➢

Vicki McKenna

Vicki McKenna presents photographs from three projects of personal landscapes, both natural and developed. The projects are united by a common thread of scale. Encompassing a natural field of view, the images are relatable. It is easy to envision being there. However, each project is motivated by a different underlying emotion—nostalgia, contentment, or humor. The majority of McKenna’s work comprises black and white photographs printed using historic processes. This involves hand coating watercolor papers with light-sensitive platinum or palladium salts. These prints have rich blacks and subtle mid-tones. Because each print is unique, McKenna finds this printing approach offers an additional avenue for her artistic expression.

McKenna earned an ALB in Natural Sciences from Harvard University and a PhD in Geological Sciences from Brown University. She studied photography at the New England School of Photography, the Photography Atelier at the Griffin Museum, and Maine Media Workshops. She has exhibited throughout New England and along the East Coast in solo, two-person and group shows, including at the Firehouse Center for the Arts, Newburyport, MA, the Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA, the Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA, PhotoPlace Gallery, Burlington, VT, and the Kiernan Gallery, Lexington, VA. She has taught a freshman seminar focused on photography at M.I.T. McKenna lives and works in Newton, MA. She is a Core Member of Fountain Street.

Chris Plunkett

Chris Plunkett is a painter who works both en plein air as well as in-studio. Plunkett’s most common influence is derived from surrounding landscapes, both urban and rural. His paintings represent personal reflections of the controlled chaos, calmness, and overall beauty of the everyday. Much of Plunkett’s work is created in-studio using photographs and sketches as reference. However, it is his outdoor plein air work that informs him most.  Chasing the light as it moves, reacting quickly to the scenes before him, Plunkett’s plein air paintings serve as an ever-lasting study of the interaction between light and landscape.

Plunkett was raised in Jamaica Plain and currently lives in Dorchester, MA. He is a full time Visual Art teacher in Boston Public Schools. Plunkett received his BA in Visual Art from Plymouth State University in 2004, studied Art Education at Massachusetts College of Art and Design from 2005-2007, and in 2013 he received Masters in Art Education from Boston University. He is a Core Member at Fountain Street Gallery.