SILVERMAN and Hamilton Square Condominium Association present
Megan Maloy: Dog Days
Opening Reception: Friday, September 9, 2011, 7 to 9 p.m.
Hamilton Square Condominium
232 Pavonia Avenue, Jersey City, NJ 07302
201.434.1000
Exhibition on view in the lobby September 9, 2011, to January 6, 2012.
Megan Maloy, Tilly in the Tub, Digital C-print
As a keen observer of the small moments of daily life, Megan Maloy is building an exciting career photographing candid scenes of loved ones. A solo exhibition of her work, Megan Maloy: Dog Days, will be on view at the Hamilton Square lobby from September 9, 2011, to January 6, 2012. The exhibition will include more than 10 of Maloy’s photographs of dogs. The most prominent canine featured is Tilly, her 8-year-old pit bull.
“When I found [Tilly], she had been living in the shelter for three months recovering from her broken leg. She didn’t even have a name. When I saw her, it was love at first sight!” says Maloy.
Maloy was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1973. She grew up in Long Valley, New Jersey, a small rural town in Morris County with a population under 2,000 people. Maloy lived in a ranch house, which her dad built, on a dirt road in the middle of the woods. Corn and horse farms surrounded her home. As a kid, she remembers climbing trees and romping in streams amid the unspoiled wilderness.
Photography is in Maloy’s blood. Both her father and grandfather were ardent picture takers. Maloy cites high school as the period when she began to study photography in earnest. After a brief stint at Ohio University, she moved back to New Jersey to pursue a degree in photography at School of Visual Arts in New York.
From early on, Maloy set her own criteria for photographing subjects. As many of her peers continue to use nudity, illicit behavior, and sexual exhibitionism as guidelines for creating pictures, Maloy utilizes her own ideas. With a down-to-earth attitude and a great sense of humor, she captures the often-overlooked and underappreciated moments in life.
- A rogue mutt lying in a patch of grass under the noonday sun, in flagrante delicto.
- A chubby Black Lab—head encased in protective cone—kneels before her master in the kitchen. (You can almost smell the just-opened bag of Utz potato chips.)
- A pit bull spooning her master in the marital bed, with her paws situated in the crook of his neck.
“I just have to wait and observe and find my moment to capture. It’s not completely random,” says Maloy. “I find a situation where I think there is the potential for a good photograph to happen and then I observe for a while. I’ll talk to my subjects and interact with them for a bit until I work out my shot.”
What sets Maloy apart from the rest of her colleagues is her generosity of vision. With a keen sense of composition and formal rigor, she combines slapstick/make-no-apologies presentations of the intimate, everlasting bond between dogs and people.
For nearly two decades, Maloy has been recognized for her versatility. She shoots portraiture, lifestyle photos, documentary, and reportage. Maloy earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Maloy participated in The Eagle Has Landed, a six-person exhibition that traveled to New York, London, and Tokyo. Several institutions have featured her work, including Jersey City Museum, Arts Guild of New Jersey, Aljira, and Print Space. She has also published her photographs in BMW Magazine, Esquire, Vibe, Paper Magazine, Black Book, and Nylon. She has also been the recipient of numerous awards, including Aljira Emerge Fellowship and Gold Lions Award, Cannes International. She currently lives in Jersey City with her husband, daughter, and pit bull.
~ Brendan Carroll, Curator
The exhibition will be on view at The Hamilton Square Condominiums through January 6, 2012. For further information, please visit us at SilvermanBuilding.com or call number (201) 435-8000. This event is part of JC Fridays.
Megan Maloy: Dog Days is the fourth exhibition that Brendan Carroll will organize for SILVERMAN.
SILVERMAN has presented the works of Laurie Riccadonna, Thomas John Carlson, Tim Daly, Ann Flaherty, Scott Taylor, Jason Seder, Sara Wolfe, Beth Gilfilen, Andrzej Lech, Hiroshi Kumagai, Tom McGlynn, Victoria Calabro, Asha Ganpat, Darren Jones, Ryan Roa, Laura Napier, Risa Puno, Nyugen E. Smith, Amanda Thackray, and Kai Vierstra.
Megan Maloy, Opening Postcard
Brendan Carroll 