Jesup Gallery
April 9 through May 31
Reception: Wednesday, May 27, 6-8 pm, in the Trefz Forum; click here for more information.
(Reception kicks off at 6 pm, followed by a conversation between Markowitz, fellow featured artist Mari Gyorgyey, and Miggs Burroughs at 7 pm.)
Willful Alchemy is a collection of lumen prints, most of which were created during my September 2022 artist residency at the Weir Farm National Park in Wilton. For 21 days I had the freedom to research and experiment with several camera-less, experimental photographic processes, as well as photograph freely around the farm. I lived in the old caretaker's house, rising early to set out my lumen compositions in the sun, take long walks along the forest trails, and build a new body of work.
Every day I made at least one lumen print, gradually creating a visual diary of my time at the farm. Lumens are photographic images made on classic analog black and white darkroom paper. I used the naturally growing plant life on the farm to create my daily compositions by layering the botanical matter on top of the paper, covering with a sheet of glass, and leaving them to expose outdoors for several hours. The fantastical colors are made as the chemicals inherent in each brand of manufactured paper are activated by the sun combined with the bleeding of the plants' own phytochemicals into the paper as they are heated up by the sun. The resulting images are magical, unexpected, and often quite abstract.
While there I also photographed John Weir’s barn studio and home with the intention of one day creating a handmade artist book, combining his work and mine as two artists having a relationship — engaged with an identical landscape, albeit separated by both process and time. Willful Alchemy is the commencement of this work. It is the ecological foundation upon which more complex images will follow.
Fruma Markowitz’s photography practice focuses on historical, experimental, and hand-made processes, with an emphasis on cyanotype and lumen photography, textile-based mixed-media collage, and most recently one-of-a-kind photobooks. Family life, womanhood, cultural histories with shared legacies, and environmental concerns are where she mostly draws inspiration for making images.
A resident of Connecticut since 2003, she belongs to local artist organizations such as The Artists’ Collective of Westport and the Ridgefield Guild of Artists. Fruma’s work has been shown nationally at the SoHo Photo Gallery in New York, the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, The Halide Project in Philadelphia, RICPA in Providence, and she is represented by the CAMP Gallery in Miami. A full portfolio publication and review of her work was featured in DekUnu Arts (2023), FLOAT Magazine (2024), and Lenscratch (Oct. 2024). She had a solo show featuring her cyanotype and lumen work at the Grover Gallery in Port Townsend, Washington in September, 2025.
Fruma won Honorable Mentions from the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers (2022, 2023). She has received three materials grants (2020, 2022, 2024) through the Drew Friedman Fund. In July 2025, she won the Arthur Griffin Legacy Award at the Griffin Museum Juried Members Exhibition. She completed an Artist Residency at the Weir Farm Nature Preserve in September 2022.
Fruma taught photography to women in crisis at the Project Return home in Westport and to cancer survivors at The Creative Center in New York, and more recently at her private home studio, The Carriage Barn Art Center, and the Five Points Art Center. In July 2022, she participated in a panel at the Exp22 FotoFest in Barcelona, Spain, on cyanotype in contemporary art practice. In July, 2025, Fruma was invited to return to the Experimental FotoFest to lead two workshops and participate in a panel on artist hand-made books. In September 2024 Fruma led a cyanotype workshop at the Northwind Arts Center in Port Townsend, WA, and will return to the area in June, 2026 to teach cyanotype for textile artists at NorthWest Arts Center, on Whidbey Island, WA. Fruma was a member of the first graduating class (1984) to earn a BFA in photography at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in Jerusalem, Israel, where she was the recipient of the Agfa Award, the Jerusalem Student Award and numerous merit scholarships.
***
For more about the Library's art exhibits, visit the Art at the Library page.
