Curated by Emily Falvey, of a feather brings together three major bodies of photographic work by Thaddeus Holownia, along with photos by Karen Stentaford, in memory of Gay Hansen, Holownia’s life partner and dear friend of Stentaford.

Holownia and Hansen’s life was full of children (they raised four), artistic expression, scientific curiosity (Hansen was an ornithologist), and a dedication to community. Holownia’s avian photographs are poignant, intimate, and sensual as each holds a connection to Hansen. Stentaford’s lugubrious landscapes bring a sense of distance and space to hold the emotional weight of the show. Hansen’s influence is felt throughout the exhibit and most directly in a playful collaborative sculpture she created with Holownia called The Collector. Each piece in the show works in support of the others, creating a beautiful, tender testament to the unique life and influence of Gay Hansen, and an ode to community and collaboration.

There is so much to see inside the gallery but Stentaford’s photos of Oliver’s Cove in Newfoundland seem like a natural place to begin. They are dark, moody, black and white, slightly distorted and distanced observations of a rugged landscape with stubborn traces of rural life surviving the ravages of time. It is as if we are looking into the past at a community that may or may not still exist. Stentaford told me that she is “excited about time passing in the still image.” She uses long exposures and uncommon, outmoded chemical processes but attributes the sense of time elapsing in her images to the “emotional searching and connection” that results from simply being in a place for a long, sustained “conversation or collaboration with the [environment].”

In Stentaford’s fence # 1, Oliver’s Cove, 2022, we see an old fence, worn and windblown but still standing. The weather-worn landscape and fence hints at the fragility of home, community, and all the things we hold dear to our hearts. Like the memory of a friend who is far away, there is a sense of loss in these images but also a thread of hope. A reminder of how even ephemeral things can survive and persist. The landscapes seem to hold onto undisclosed memories. I like to think that Stentaford’s landscapes in this show are creating and holding a space for Holownia’s intimate photographs in the same way that community creates space for its individual members.

From this safe distance, we move closer to the core of the show with Holownia’s work Icarus, Falling of Birds. A long and wide scroll-like photograph of dozens of small, still dead birds hangs high on the wall, unrolling to the floor. A flock might seem like a community, but a lifeless flock is no community at all. This work memorializes an event in 2013 when 7,500 migrating songbirds flew into a gas flare at the Canaport gas plant in Saint John and died. Hansen was one of the biologists responsible for cataloguing the varieties of birds killed in this terrible accident. Hansen’s connection to this event led Holownia to photograph the birds as evidence and reminders of this tragedy. Breathless yet precious, each bird on the scroll reminds us of how we are connected to each other and our environment.

Then there are the stunning large photos of single and spectacularly patterned unhatched eggs from Holownia’s series Ova Aves. The photos are from the egg collection at Mount Allison’s ornithology lab that Hansen assembled over the course of thirty years. Holownia saw the collection “as something that should be celebrated because of its unique beauty that people don’t normally see. One egg that’s unidentified looks like Chinese porcelain with a little zigzag. And, of course, Gay [talked about] the scientific way that markings are created on bird eggs and how they function in terms of camouflage or not.”

Once again, we see art and science coming together in a collaboration between Hansen and Holownia. Looking at the egg photographs, I couldn’t help but think of family, of nurturing, of care and growth. And once again, there is a bittersweet afterbite of sadness. These eggs will never hatch. They are beautiful, yet silent. They are symbolic of birth but like the still birds in the Icarus series, they point as much to what we might lose as to what we might wish for. They offer a meditation on what might be and what could have been.

And now we arrive at the core of the exhibition: Holownia’s most recent work, made in direct response to Hansen’s absence, a series of photos titled of a feather. These simple and full-frame images of soft feathers of various species were made from bird-study skins, again from Hansen’s collection at the ornithology lab. They are photographed up-close and in a way that your eyes can almost sense the touch of the feathers under your fingers.

Holownia had gone to Hansen’s lab with the intent of finding a way to honor Hansen’s work and spirit: “I decided to go to the lab and do something as a third project in the trilogy. And that’s when [I saw] the drawers are full of study skins. They look like sleeping birds. You can reach and pick it up, and it’s like a sleeping bird.” During her time at Mount Allison, Hansen collected thousands of birds. Holownia continued, “It took me a while. I set up by the north-facing window because it was really nice light [that gave the photos] an absolute beauty and simplicity, and [the study skin photos] honor the things that Gay loved, without any fanciness. I felt that there was something I needed to say about the ornithology lab and her commitment to building that collection. And once I got in there doing that, I realized that… her presence is in the work and the birds themselves.”

Indeed, her presence can be felt in these photos. Holownia told me about one particular photo in the series; it’s of a young starling with white markings on the black feathers that look like hearts. He said that Hansen taught him that “An immature starling has these [heart] markings, but when it becomes mature, the white disappears, and it’s just the darkness.” It strikes me that the nature of photography, maybe any artform, is simply about looking. The result of Holownia’s looking, perhaps searching, in the ornithology lab for Hansen’s presence are these most beautiful and tender offerings to a shared and enduring connection and to a life lived with Hansen that was entwined with art, family, science, and community.

Stentaford reflected on the process of participating in this show, saying, “There’s an element of shared grief, and the kind of strength that happens when you share experiences.” Holownia told me that the opening was full of people who had been affected by Hansen’s unique compassion and warmth. Holownia’s three series shown here–Ova Aves, Icarus, Falling of Birds, and of a feather–have each been published in book-form with poems by longtime family friend Harry Thurston. Yet another example of this commitment to collaboration. And although the photos in the show carry a weight of death and the hope of life, there is also a reminder of Hansen’s playfulness found in the collaborative work she made with Holownia. A taxidermy crow by Hansen perches on a small wooden box, staring at its collection of pennies. One smiles looking at it. The crow seems so alive. Will it come to life and offer a penny as a gift?

If the artistic process is indeed simply the act of looking, then Hansen will always be a part of how Holownia sees the world and the images he photographs. Holownia told me about how strange it is to be without Hansen. He said, “I live in the same place. She’s always in the back of my mind, because I’m here and I’m looking at birds, looking at the landscape, or I’m thinking about, you know, the garden.” In a way they are still collaborating and this beautiful show of photographs by Stentaford and Holownia captures that indescribable influence of love.

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of a feather (in memory of Gay Hansen), with work by Thaddeus Holownia and Karen Stentaford, was curated by Emily Falvey and exhibited at the Owens Art Gallery, in Sackville, N.B. (19 January 2024 – 15 May 2024) and St FX Art Gallery, in Antigonish N.S. (6 Feb – 29 March 2025).