Saint Elizabeth Ann Seaton, from the series Reconciliation

Originally from California, S. Billie Mandle was until recently an assistant professor of photography at Hampshire College in Amherst, but teaches now at Mass College of Art and Design, where she received her MFA. Over the course of a number of different projects, Mandle has used the camera to explore ideas of power, history, and place. Beginning in 2010 and lasting for nearly a decade, she photographed the interiors of confessionals in Catholic churches across the United States. The series, entitled Reconciliation, was published by Kehrer Verlag (2020) and features long exposure, large-format images that capture the dim light and patina of these empty spaces and the subtle traces left behind by those who find solace in them. The fact that her photographs are shot from the vantage point of the parishioners also reinforces the complicated relationship that Mandle—as a queer woman and new mother—has with the church and its promise of forgiveness for those who take part in this ritual. More recently, she has created another series of photographs she calls Blue Ground, which record the unkempt edges of gardens and weedy patches on the grounds of institutional care facilities for people with a range of disabilities. These modest pictures of unprepossessing nature are transformed into something powerful and mysterious by the artist’s decision to overlay each of them with a wash of a specific shade of blue, identified by the medical device or protective gear that it derives from, in this case, the distinctive color of nitrile latex exam gloves.