Opening Reception at Riverworks Gallery | Photographer Sarah Solomon's "Scratched" Series

The trees in Sarah Hood Salomon’s black-and-white photography impress the viewer with their stark beauty, but underlying each image is an unnerving tone of foreboding: When she photographed them, all of these trees were on the verge of being cleared for development. Now most of them are.

Sarah Solomon turns her lens to wild woodlands in Montgomery County in black-and-white photography series, “Scratched,”  reflecting on their fate: to give way to buildings and homes—a troubling reality that finds expression in the ways she deliberately defaces her own photographic prints, scratching away at their surface.

“Sometimes the scratching is delicate and enhances individual features as a celebration of the beauty and resilience of trees,” Salomon explains. “Other times the scratch marks are swirling and rough… The photographic dust no longer contains an identifiable image, just as the products of fallen trees, such as lumber or paper pulp, no longer resemble the trees from which they came.”

“Climate change and urbanization have created enormous challenges for the survival of our forests,” Salomon says. “The ever-expanding human population has severely limited the extent of natural habitats. My photographs are a celebration of the woodlands, but they also reflect the sadness I feel as a result of the environmental changes our planet is experiencing.”

“Scratched” will be on display from Wednesday, February 21, 2024, through Sunday, April 7, 2024, at Locals Farm Market, 19929 Fisher Avenue, Poolesville, Md. This show is the eleventh Riverworks “Artist in the House” exhibition to be featured on the second floor of the historic Veirs-Stevens House at Locals Farm Market. An opening reception will be held at Locals on Sunday, March 3, 2024, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The reception is free and the public is invited to attend.