The Arts Center at Duck Creek is opening for the season on Saturday with two exhibitions. “Residual Light,” which will be in the John Little Barn, brings together eight female artists who work with alternative process and camera-less photography. The Little Gallery will feature a solo show of paintings and drawings by Avani Patel.
A reception for both will be held at the Springs venue on Saturday from 5 to 7, and the shows will run through June 14.
“Residual Light,” curated by Andrea Cote and Galina Kurlat, includes work by Kaitlyn Danielson, Debora Francis, Amanda Marchand, Anne Arden McDonald, Wendy Small, Shoshannah White, and the two curators, who say the artists are linked by their embrace of “analog methods and receptivity to chance, materiality, and process.”
“We’re excited to introduce these artists’ experimental work to the East End community,” Cote said. “Duck Creek’s historic John Little Barn is a perfect setting for these artists’ work, which traces back to early historical photographic processes, bringing a contemporary approach and curiosity. At this time when one can generate and manipulate a digital image in seconds, these artists engage with a slow, tactile, and absolutely present way of camera-less creation with light.”
Cote is an interdisciplinary artist who incorporates her own and others’ bodies with plant life in print-based mixed-media installations and projects that involve community participation. Her site-specific fabric cyanotypes, exposed in sunlight, invite a deeper connection to nature’s cycles.
Danielson’s art is rooted in sensitive and sometimes unpredictable historic photographic processes that rely on the fundamental ingredients of silver and light to produce an image.
Francis transforms light-sensitive paper into one-of-a-kind abstract works through alchemical darkroom processes and a collaborative engagement with her materials.
A photographic artist and curator, Kurlat creates a visual relationship between herself and her subject by embracing the imperfections and possibilities of antiquated photographic processes. She creates lumen prints, or sun-exposed camera-less photographs, with highly personal elements including breast milk and bathwater, thereby creating a nonrepresentational self-portrait.
Marchand focuses on the natural world with a materials-based approach to photography and photo books. In her “Lumen Notebooks” she exposes black-and-white photo papers while working outdoors to uncover their “hidden” color alphabet.
A visual artist and curator, McDonald generates cosmological and atomic imagery on photographic paper with scientific and domestic materials, including soap, fungi, enzymes, and rust.
Small’s practice engages with organic forms and materials including roots, weeds, and flowers gathered from sites of personal significance. In her “Remedy Series” she creates large-scale tiled color photograms in the darkroom, translating ephemeral materials into immersive compositions.
A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in photography, White explores natural phenomena with projects related to specific ecological systems. Her work activates site-specific materials such as coal, ice core samples, mica, dust, and iron through camera-less photographic techniques.
A hands-on cyanotype and lumen print demonstration, hosted by Cote and Kurlat, will take place on May 17 from noon to 1:30. Participants will explore the creative possibilities of alternative photography while learning how light, time, and materials interact to produce one-of-a-kind images. Registration via eventbrite.com is required.
The artist Avani Patel, born in Mumbai, India, immigrated with her family to Pennsylvania when she was 11. Her paintings and drawings express the relationship between ecology and experience, drawing from early memories. She translates those experiences into layered compositions filled with organic forms, rhythmic patterns, and imagined environments.
“My work explores memory, nature, color, and movement,” said Patel. “I grew up in India, and the memory of my mother’s garden and my sister’s performances are woven deeply into everything I make. When people come to my show, ‘What the Garden Remembers,’ I want them to connect with the joyfulness in these works, and with the culture that inspired them.”
In addition to her studio practice, Patel is actively engaged in public art. She is currently developing a large-scale installation at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. In June, she expects to complete a mural project in downtown Brooklyn. Later this year, continuing to expand her practice across both gallery and public contexts, she will have a solo exhibition at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning.
Patel, who lives and works in Brooklyn, holds a B.A. from Pennsylvania State University and an M.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Her paintings have been exhibited widely across the United States and abroad.
