VI
Women behind the lens
Ansley West Rivers •
Beth Horstman •
Deb Ehrens •
Natalie Ackerman •
Pamela Cohen •
Sarah Dasco •
Susan Auriemma •
Susan McLafferty
Ansley West Rivers • Beth Horstman • Deb Ehrens • Natalie Ackerman • Pamela Cohen • Sarah Dasco • Susan Auriemma • Susan McLafferty
Exhibition
Women Behind the Lens: The 6th Annual Exhibition
Presented by YJ Contemporary Fine Art, Women Behind the Lens celebrates its sixth year, showcasing contemporary female artists in photography and lens-based media. Continuing its tradition, the exhibition fosters dialogue around visibility, authorship, and women’s creative influence in fine art.
Featuring Ansley West Rivers, Beth Horstman, Deb Ehrens, Natalie Ackerman, Pamela Cohen, Sarah Dasco, Susan Auriemma, and Susan McClafferty, the show covers a broad range—from minimalism and coastal themes to botanical studies, nature storytelling, and experimental, poetic imagery.
Despite their differences, these works share a focus on place, light, and time; a sense of restraint and nuance; and a dedication to craftsmanship. Beth Horstman’s use of simplicity and negative space creates visual stillness, while Deb Ehrens integrates traditional craft with modern tools to broaden expressive possibilities.
Now in its sixth year, Women Behind the Lens upholds YJ Contemporary’s dedication to presenting women’s art with depth, purpose, and thoughtful curation—resulting in an exhibition that is both visually compelling and conceptually meaningful.
Artists
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Ansley West Rivers is an artist whose photographic practice focuses on the intersection of landscape and humanity.
Her work is featured in many public and private collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, The Microsoft Corporation, The Telfair Museums, The Judge Collection, LaGrange Art Museum and The Mayo Collection. Additionally, West Rivers's work has been shown at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art (San Francisco, CA), Sous Les Etoiles Gallery (New York, NY), Burrard Arts Foundation (Vancouver BC), EUQINOM Gallery (San Francisco, CA), The Brower Center (Berkley, CA), Kala Art Institute (Berkley, CA), Carmel Visual Arts (Carmel, CA), Hathaway Gallery (Atlanta, GA), United Photo Industries (DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY), The Print Center (Philadelphia, PA), The Wiregrass Museum (Dothan, AL), PhotoLondon (London, England), and Laney Contemporary (Savannah, GA).
She received her BFA from the University of Georgia and MFA from the California College of the Arts. She currently lives with her husband and two children in Victor, Idaho.
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I was raised on a small farm in Chester County Pennsylvania. I was twelve when my father took me to buy my first camera. This marked the beginning of my interest in photography. Over the years, I photographed as time would allow, directing my attention on my family and eventually our children. As that began to wear thin, I wanted to expand my focus and sought instruction to improve my skill.
My photography is rooted in personal connection. I am drawn to subjects that evoke a feeling or a memory or that is connected to a person or experience in my life that has shaped me.
I grew up in a family that was very close and the flower images I have chosen to show, reflect the memories of my mother. The flowers are from my own garden and are meaningful, as I think of her teaching me whenever I introduce something new to grow. When I manage to nurture a beauty, I feel compelled to document it.
I now live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where my husband grew up, and over the years of frequent visits, I have become familiar with the personality of this area. I have included two images that represent, to me, the landscape where we live. The fog, field and trees are a scene that repeats on the Shore as the seasons change, much like the common sight of a Chesapeake Deadrise passing through a foggy channel.
I enjoy photographing still life, always choosing objects that have personal significance for me. Whether working indoors or in the field photographing the landscape around me, I like to keep my images simple. I find balance using symmetry and negative space which create a sense of order. I use fog, perspective and composition which help me eliminate distractions while keeping the focus on the intended appearance of the image.
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Deb Ehrens embraces age-old artisan techniques and modern digital tools in her image-making. A resident of Dartmouth, MA, her work has been featured in galleries throughout the region and in national juried exhibits. Her award-winning images are held in private, corporate, and museum collections.
“The narrative begins in total darkness as I accentuate and embellish the flower form with fast-moving, strategically positioned hand-held lights. Each floral portrait is a combination of many digital negatives. My “canvas” begins with a layer of the darkest darks. Then, in the style of a Renaissance painter, I gradually paint in the light that reveals the form, detail, and ephemeral grace hidden within.
We all have personal narratives, a collection of stories illuminating key moments in our lives. Our stories come from memories, truths, embellishments, and omissions. Using light rather than words, I have written imagined narratives about flowers from my garden. Studying that transformation from buds on the edge of an explosion to tissue-thin fibers holding the faded hues of past beauty is a meditation on life. It is a reminder to live fully in each moment.”
~ Deb Ehrens
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My work is rooted in environment—how places hold pressure, carry time, and remember what has passed through them. I’m drawn to moments that don’t settle: spaces mid-shift, mid-erosion, mid-refusal. Rather than arriving to collect an image, I arrive to stay—long enough for something to surface.
I photograph cities and landscapes as living structures shaped by repetition, wear, and return. What interests me are the gaps and edges—where distance tightens, where a frame begins to press back, where a space becomes aware of itself. Light doesn’t arrive to clarify; it moves across surfaces, fixes something briefly, then leaves. What’s faded, stretched, crowded, or marked is not detail in the work—it is structure. It is how a place speaks.
Motion lingers without resolving. It drags, overlaps, leaves residue. Figures blur or fall away. Rooms remember after they empty. Time bends and refuses closure. The image doesn’t conclude; it holds. Cityscapes soften. Landscapes retain rhythm even in stillness. The frame extends beyond itself, asking the viewer to slow down and remain inside the image.
I move between black and white and color when necessary. One reduces the scene to bone—shadow, surface, restraint. The other carries weight—density, saturation, tension that hums beneath stillness. Neither is decorative. Both are ways of staying close.
I don’t intervene or correct. The work is built through patience, proximity, and attention—through looking long enough for the surface to give way. What emerges is not a document of place, but a record of presence.
I photograph what holds.
What stretches.
What refuses to leave—
even as it fades. -
Pamela is a professional fine art photographer and owner of Prima Photography. As a biologist she incorporates knowledge of nature and blends it with photographic competency to create stunning images in the wild. She has studied in the field under the guidance of National Geographic photographers, including Frans Lanting and Galen Rowell, recognized as two of the finest landscape and nature photographers of the recent era. Pamela’s passion for travel has transported her to Italy to photograph extensively throughout the country. It is from these portfolios that her images serve as restaurant decor in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Georgia.
Her work has been seen in the prestigious, Butler Institute of American Art. Solo gallery installations include, “Southern Coastal Italy, Sicily, and the Aeolian Islands”, “Visions of Life”,“Intimate Images”, “Wings of Love”, “Submersion Venice”, and in 2025, “Embracing Nature”. She has won many photographic awards, including an international competition with, “Tree Frog on Wild Iris.” August 2016, Pamela was a semifinalist in America’s Top Photographer. Her photos of Low Country landscapes and nature grace the walls of many homes and businesses. She has photographed for magazines and is a contributing photographer to Roots.
Currently, Pamela is a lecturer, teacher, writer, workshop leader, contest judge, and book illustrator, with images appearing in a literary award winning publication. She volunteers as a shorebird steward for endangered and threatened bird species along the shores of South Carolina. Her affiliates are the North American Nature Association, Audubon, Charleston Artist Guild, Kiawah Island Photography Club, and the Conservancy of the Sea Islands.
Her gallery representation is with the Wells Gallery, Kiawah Island.
“As a professional fine art photographer and biologist, I create images that initiate a celebration of nature.
My imagery offers a harmonic connectivity from what the eye sees to what the heart feels.
Viewers should engage visually as well as emotionally in order to share my sensory perceptions while in the field photographing and observing the emergence of nature.
From my work, I hope viewers experience a soft calming “voice” of the natural world and a loud dominant “voice” of conservation.”
Pamela Cohen ~
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Sarah’s love of photography began many years ago. Self taught, with a creative eye, she is inspired by the coastal communities she enjoys spending time in. From Cape Cod to the Bahamas, she is passionate about capturing the quiet beauty of ocean and beach landscapes, focusing on scenes and lighting that convey calm, balance and a sense of escape. Her coastal photography highlights tranquil moments, creating images that invite viewers to pause, breathe and connect with the shoreline.
It is not only the moment of taking the photograph but also the quiet process that follows, which Sarah enjoys. Spending time studying and editing each image to bring out its very best, is a creative process that she finds deeply rewarding, the final image becomes a meaningful expression of both the place and the experience behind it.
Over the years she has built a strong following of loyal customers, many of whom return to purchase new pieces and have begun collections of her work. A selection of her work is now also being shown at Quidgley and Company’s fine art gallery in both Nantucket and Naples, and in addition to gallery representation her work is also available to purchase directly through her web-site.
Sarah, born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, moved to the States in 2,000 and has since called Boston and the South Shore home. She values giving back and has been a long time volunteer and supporter of the SSYMCA. Connecting with others and using her work to give back and develop community support is something she enjoys doing very much.
She hopes her work brings peace and beauty to homes across New England and beyond.
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Susan Auriemma, a native Rhode Islander and occasional New Yorker, picked up her original Nikon in 1996 when her first child was born and hasn’t put it down since. However, it wasn’t until Susan’s mother, Sylvia Hampton, asked her to go on a landscape photography trip to Ireland in 2016 that she truly connected with her camera as an artist, inspired by her mother who has been a photographer since her 20s. Susan has traveled extensively since that first adventure, expanding her skills and repertoire, and has been honing her personal style both abroad and at home in Rhode Island.
Susan Auriemma's photography features softened textures and colors that evoke a sense of calm. Growing up just steps from the ocean, Susan developed an innate connection to the soothing effects of waves, their sights and sounds fostering a deep sense of tranquility. Through her fine art pieces, she brings this serenity into the home.
The Echoes of Light Collection by Susan Auriemma Photography reflects the artist's intention to inspire peace. Susan achieves this effect by softening images of waves and water using a technique known as Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). This method subtly blurs the image, preserving enough detail for the subject to remain recognizable while avoiding complete abstraction. Each piece in the collection is presented in a way that is designed to evoke the impression of a painting rather than a traditional photograph.
The pieces displayed in “Women Behind the Lens VI” exhibit were created on the Isle of Harris in Scotland. While this location is known for its wild weather, the use of ICM allows the artist to capture the seascape in a way that creates a scene that feels soothing to the viewer with its softened lines and pastel colors.
When Susan isn’t photographing seascapes and landscapes, her commercial photography is focused on interiors, architecture and food photography. She is also an FAA-licensed drone pilot. Susan’s photographs have been featured in The New York Times, Hamptons Magazine, Chatham Living Magazine, Newport Life, and Long Island Newsday.
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Mareish Media | Equine Fine Art Photography
I create studio-based fine art portraits of horses that focus on form, light, and presence.
By removing environmental context and visual distraction, I isolate the horse as structure and sculpture. Muscle, line, and gesture become the composition. Light is shaped with the same intention a painter uses pigment or a sculptor uses clay.
Rather than bring horses into a traditional studio, I construct the studio around them transforming stables and covered spaces into controlled environments of light and shadow. This approach allows precision without compromising the horse’s comfort or welfare.
Each image is resolved in camera. Perspective, composition, and color are intentional and deliberate, creating photographs that feel tactile, minimal, and timeless.
At the center of my practice is respect for the horse as a living presence. The process is grounded in quiet handling, technical control, and respect for the horse’s comfort.
Through Mareish Media, I produce museum-quality photographic works that present the horse as both subject and sculpture.
Horses are not my subjects.
They are my passion, my partners and my art.
Video
Ansley West Rivers
Snake River, South Fork Canyon, Idaho 2025 • 40x50” • Ed. #1/7
Snake River, Swan Valley, 2021 • 40x50” • Ed. #5/7
Snake River, South Fork Canyon, Idaho 2021 • 40x50” • Ed. #4/7
Blacktail Ponds of the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park Wyoming 2021 • 40x50” • Ed. #4/7
Beth Horstman
"Blush Dahlia" • 20x30" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
"Peony" • 20x30" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
"Pink Dahlia" • 20x20 • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
"Bloomingdale" • 12x16" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Deb Ehrens
Golden Moment • 20x20" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Agapanthus Blooming • 20x30" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Lisianthus: Duos • 20x30" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Milkweed • 20x20" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Peony Breeze • 37.5x30" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Natalie Ackerman
“At The Threshold of Break” • 35x35” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Empire Through Glass” • 50x30” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Silent Reach” • 30x25” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Uncaged” • 35x35” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Where The Water Allows” • 45x30” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Pamela cohen
Flutter • 30x52" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Fly This Way • 30x52" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
In a Blink of an Eye • 30x52" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Follow Me (Diptych) • 35x24"/35x41" • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Solo • 30" Round • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Sarah Dasco
“Pink Sands, Harbour Island” • 40x40” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Green waters pink sands, Harbour Island” • 40x40” •Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Susan Auriemma
“Abstract Blue” Outer Hebrides, Scotland • 20x44.5” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Rolling Hills” Outer Hebrides, Scotland • 20x35.5” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Turquoise on Sand” Outer Hebrides, Scotland • 20x44.5” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
“Warmth” Outer Hebrides, Scotland • 20x35.5” • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Susan McLafferty
Calligraphy • 20x30 • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Tequila Sunrise • 30x40 • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Continuum • 24x30 • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Candy Floss • 30x40 • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum
Stars and Strides • 40x40 • Dye Sublimation on Aluminum