John McConnico: Romania and Moldova Squared (May 4 – May 8, 2017)

John McConnico is the winner of several World Press Photo awards, the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news photography and the 2003 John Faber Award.

In late 2007, he found out that his family were moving from Denmark to Moldova. Almost 5 years later they moved from Moldova to Romania and now, a decade later, John and his family will move from Romania to Brussels and we, Renaissance Art Gallery, are honored to have the possibility to show how John had captured the two countries into his black and white squared photos.

John explains below how this project started:

“At about the same time he moved to this part of the world, 10 years ago, the iPhone was invented.”

And though John had been a professional photographer for 25 years, something about the iPhone and specifically black and white photography brought him back to the reason he had become interested in photography to begin with.

“The intimacy of it, the fact I always had it with me, the simple and elegant beauty of the square as opposed the more jarring vertical and horizontal images I was encouraged to use as part of my job as a wire service photographer for the last two decades. The use of black and white for me has always made more sense. It allows the viewer to fill in the blanks and actively use their minds to imagine that which is not shown. Shadows become more important. Using vanishing points as part of the composition is more essential. More than anything, it allows the image to come alive not necessarily on paper but in the theater of the mind.”

Works Available at the Gallery – John McConnico

All black and white photos 60x60cm are for sale by order + shipment and/or taxes if they are not picked up from the Gallery or need to be shipped abroad.