Cheryl Nemazie and Bishop's Stock team for striking exhibit

Posted by Jon Westman

It was a evening of firsts in Snow Hill last night (March 5) as the monthly celebration of art known as “First Friday” unveiled the latest and largest gallery exhibit by photographer Cheryl Nemazie at the prominent and popular Bishop’s Stock Fine Art & Fine Craft gallery.

Change is the Constant: Reflections on a Malleable Society is a stunning photographic series of water reflections captured by Nemazie as they naturally appeared.

“I began shooting the series while vacationing in Venice, Italy, for several weeks,” Cheryl said. “After days of shooting through numerous canal-ways, my eye turned to the images ethereally shifting and changing beneath me. I thought of Venice’s vibrant history and how the reflections themselves may have changed in color and structure over the course of it, but that the constant ebb and flow of the canvas had not. Since that visit, throughout my travels both here and abroad, I have always made time for similar thoughts and capturing the literal reflections with my camera.”

It is the first photography exhibit in the seven-year history of Bishop’s Stock – widely regarded as one of the Eastern Shore’s finest art galleries. Gallery owner Ann Coates has always been hesitant to hang a collection of photography, but after meeting with Nemazie, seeing her creative and captivating collection of images and learning about her photographic passions, the decision became an easy one.

“When I saw her documentary work, it blew me away,” Ann said. “The Reflections collection is true fine art photography. It is just fabulous. She had never done anything like this, and this was a first for me too, so we put our heads together and had a great time planning it. It really is a fantastic show.”

“I rely on my sense of color and composition in my framing of these images,” Cheryl said. “The works are digitally captured, but produced in methods reminiscent of traditional darkroom developing. None of the images have been “Photoshopped,” and I do not use special-effect filters. The magic lies in the ever changing patterns and colors reflecting the environment beyond a water canvas.”

“Photography’s true definition is writing with light,” Cheryl continued. “In that vein, my documentary work could be said to be my non-fiction, portraiture – my commercial work can be thought of as the business oeuvre, or fiction – depending on how jaded one feels. But my Change is the Constant series, with its finely honed images… this is my poetry.”

Change is the Constant: Reflections on a Malleable Society is on display at Bishop’s Stock through March 31. For more information, visit www.cherylnemazie.com and www.bishopsstock.com.