The Montgomery Museum is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit featuring the fine photography of three of our very own photographers: Jean Galloway, Riley Chan, and Matt Gentry.
Galloway graduated from the University of Tennessee and attended the New York School of Interior Design where she became very interested in color and design. This interest led to painting and experimenting with color.
Because of the encouragement of friends and family, she opened a studio and spent 30 years teaching, painting, selling, and learning in Richmond.
In 1994, Galloway moved back to Christiansburg where she continued to paint, sell at East Coast art shows, and design wallpaper.
Several years ago she was inspired by her brother to learn photography in hopes that she would use photos as painting inspiration.
“My collection of photos has grown and grown and I find I love photography as much as painting,” Galloway said.
Chan has been shooting photography for over 18 years and travels widely to develop his different interests in types of his shots.
He has recently discovered a motif of incorporating people into his landscape photographs to provide human interest.
His use of profile and shots from the back allow him to circumvent the concern of his subjects’ privacy. For this show, he chooses shapes and shadows in dawn, dusk, or through photographic trickery.
Chan has begun to work in watercolor using his photographs as models for the paintings. He also “dabbles” in fused glass and clay pieces.
Gentry is a Blacksburg citizen, artist, and photographer. His photographs have been published worldwide via the Roanoke Times and Associated Press.
The work in this exhibit features photographs made with a “point and shoot” camera along the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club’s portion of the famous footpath through the New River and Roanoke Valleys in July of 2017.
The journey covered about 150 miles over a period of two weeks. Gentry had already completed a three decades long section hike of the entire Appalachian Trail in 2014.
He continues his evolvement with the trail community by volunteering and co-maintaining an 8.5-mile section of the trail in Giles County.
This exhibit will open Thursday, Sept. 6 with a reception for the public from 5-7 p.m. at the museum and remain in place through October.
