Reflections on the Human Journey: Two Series | Photographs by Karin Rosenthal

Reception to meet the artist on Thursday, May 14 from 3-5pm

Drawing from 2 entirely different bodies of work from her 50 years of photographing humans reflected in still water, award-winning photographer Karin Rosenthal engages with life’s journey in both color and B&W. The show at the Summer Street Gallery at TCAN will remain hanging until June 30.

Karin’s Tide Pool Series uses observations of light (in sun versus shade) to transform the way the human figure fuses with the tide pools. Sometimes the shaded figure is made up of tide pool elements such as rocks or seaweed. Other times sunlit abstract flesh floats freely amidst the shells. Or microscopic lit-up figures intertwine with seaweed and shell edges to create small dioramas of life. Surprisingly, these are all observed and captured moments, not contrivances in Photoshop.

Karin’s In Reflection Series also involves figures reflected into still water but now it is the people’s faces that are the subject. Karin builds from her decades-long experience observing and utilizing light to convey a deeper sense of a person.

The series began with a young woman in her twenties but has evolved into portraits of older people, bearing the markings of time and the inevitable continuity of our lives within nature.

Bio: Karin Rosenthal’s abstract photographs of people in nature have been exhibited internationally, collected widely, and reside in 17 museum collections, including Boston’s MFA, the Brooklyn Museum, the ICP, and the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG). They have won numerous international awards and have been shown and sold at the prestigious AIPAD exposition in NYC. Her photograph in First Doubt: Optical Confusion in Modern Photography at YUAG was selected to represent the show of 100 images by famous 20th Century photographers and was featured in the New York Times review. Karin was the recipient of a 2025 Mass Cultural Council Grant.

Visit: www.krosenthal.com or her instagram @karin_rosenthal_photography