©Nadine Boughton, Executive Placesetting

Simply put, Nadine Boughton is a collage artist and photographer. But actually, she is a visual chef of sorts, mixing imagery from vintage magazines of the 1950’s to explore the psychology, politics, and polarities of mid-century America. Nadine’s various projects have received much acclaim in the photography world, garnering numerous Top 50 Portfolio nods (2011, 2013 and 2014) in Photolucida’s Critical Mass Competitions, most likely because her work is at once humorous and thoughtful, making us consider gender roles, advertising, fantasy, and who we once were.

Her new project Fortune and the Feminine mixes the worlds of deviled eggs and lingerie with the 1950’s board room, highlighting the absurdity of notions of beauty and power.  She currently has six pieces as part of The Fence project, (which was also part of the Flash Forward Festival in Boston), sponsored by UPI, up until September 1. Her work will be included in a  group show, Outspoken, which will open at The de-Menil Gallery, Groton, MA in January 2017. Her work can be seen at Trident Gallery in Gloucester, MA and Carver Hill Gallery in Rockland, Maine.

Nadine’s work has been exhibited widely, including Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY; JoAnne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA; Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA; and GuatePhoto in Guatemala. She was an IRIS lecturer at The Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, CA. Nadine’s work is represented by Trident Gallery, Gloucester, MA.

Nadine grew up in Rochester, NY, under the shadow of George Eastman’s Kodak Tower. She studied photography with Garry Winogrand, and at Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY, and Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. She currently lives in Gloucester, MA.

©Nadine Boughton, Aladdin’s Lamp

Fortune and the Feminine

In this series my focus is on gender polarities as depicted in popular magazines of the 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Fortune magazine depicted (and still does) men’s world of wealth, industry and big ideas. Its advertisements were awash with imagery of invention and executives’ glamour. Women’s magazines centered on the home with all its flowing fabrics, sensuality and a dreamy interiority.

My intention is to deconstruct these images of mid-century advertising, creating narratives of ambiguity with humor and a dark edge, and revealing some of the different relationships men and women have to power, beauty and longing. The images play with the convergence of interior and exterior domains, abstract ideas and the mystery of the female form.

This series is an homage both to the handsome men in Fortune who look like all the fathers I watched in their big suits and briefcases, carpooling to a foreign land; and to the community of mothers who served egg salad sandwiches on the green lawns of suburbia.

©Nadine Boughton, Birth Canal

©Nadine Boughton, Cape Canaveral

©Nadine Boughton, Come Fly with Me

©Nadine Boughton, Egg Loaf

©Nadine Boughton, Hydroelectric Power

©Nadine Boughton,, R & D Team

©Nadine Boughton, Summit Meeting

©Nadine Boughton, Wingtips