Melonie Bennett, HOLY COW! portfolio, 1/1, 66 Images, 11 x 14 silver signed prints, $42,000 (institutional discount)

‘In high school, I was shy and naive. When my father spread manure in fields that bordered classmates’ homes, I wanted to be invisible. Being the oldest, I thought I had to behave. I never dared to party or skip school. It wasn’t even an option. My siblings sure made up for it—they were wild. But I found my groove. I took a high school darkroom class, at the same time that I took on the role as the designated driver for family and friends to parties. This gave me the license to observe and take pictures of what other people, including my family were doing. And I didn’t have to drink! What a gift from God.’ -M.B

‘As photographing my family became more routine, Merritt (my brother) thought it would be clever to start gifting me a single, unwrapped roll of film on these occasions. He would just laugh and say ‘that’s all you’re getting’—mocking me, my picture-taking and loving the ribbing he was doling out. But in fact, each time he had spent six bucks on me and had to make the effort to shop—this proved he loved me, right? I told him he should save his money and write down his stories as my gifts instead.' -M.B.

Melonie Bennett was born in 1969 and lives and works in Maine, where she has photographed her family and friends for over three decades. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the MaineCollege of Art, in 1991. Immediately after graduating, photographer Judy Glickman asked Bennett to help her set up a darkroom. They both worked well together and thirty-five years later they continue to collaborate and support each other's artistic aspirations. Judy’s adventuresome spirit and passion for photography has taken them to many places, meeting many great people along the way. They have always drawn upon the richness of their very different lives for inspiration and that's what has kept them motivated and moving forward all this time. In the years since, Bennett has built a substantial and wide-ranging exhibition history, with her work shown in many exhibitions in the United States and abroad. Her photographs have entered into significant company: images from her series HOLY COW! will appear alongside work by Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Susan Meiselas, and Gordon Parks in the forthcoming major travelling exhibition PRESENCE: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder, co-organized by the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, and the American Federation of Arts, New York. HOLY COW! will mark Bennett's first monograph. Bennett's photographs are held in the permanent collections of several respected public institutions, including the following public collections:

• Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Portland, Maine

• Farnsworth Museum of Art, Rockland, Maine

• Princeton Museum of Art, Princeton, New Jersey

• Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

• Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine

• Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, Massachusetts

• Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, Maine

• University of New England, Portland, Maine

• University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine