The Purple Sins exhibition features 20 photographs by Eleanor M. Imperato, a writer, poet and photographer.
Imperato has imbued these images with a poetic sensibility to evoke emotions and feelings. Whether they portray a house in a landscape of grass, sea and sky, the fecundity of ripe pomegranates, or an iron gate flanked by cypresses, we, the viewers relish the beauty of natural as well as manmade creations.
Do these photographs invite thought? Do we feel compelled to explore what lies behind the stand of trees with soft green leaves or do we turn away from that seeming barrier? Do we just see roses reflected in a pool or wonder if reflection is not necessarily truth?
A hint of mystery and even danger suffuses these photographs: tall trees hiding secrets behind their slim trunks, their crowns splashed with sunlight; mushrooms growing strong and glowing in the darkness.
There is nothing more sinister than tree roots reaching out along the forest floor. Like the hands of a malevolent giant, they are ready to strike. And yet, according to Dr. David Linton, Professor Emeritus, Marymount Manhattan College Department of Communication and Media Arts, there is something symbolic about that photograph and it warrants special attention. Imperato’s work strives to get to the root of both the plant and the human experience.
Viewers are invited to delve deeper into these mysteries through Imperato’s poetry book of the same name, Purple Sins, which accompanies this exhibition. The poetic images conjured by the poems, as well as the poetry evinced by the photographs that illustrate them, arouse our own sentiments and beliefs.