You pick them up off the ground, marvel at their colors, perhaps pocket a couple hoping by some off chance they might stay pretty for a while longer. They never do. In fact, the speed at which autumn leaves shrivel and brown never fails to surprise you. In his long walks around Brooklyn with his beloved beagle Augie, Tom Bovo played out this scenario often as the seasons changed. He was intrigued not only by how leaves changed over time, but also by how they differed from street to street. Each street had a particular collection of plants and trees that resulted in its own palette and variety of leaf shapes, just as neighboring countries might have different languages and modes of dress. As a photographer, Bovo found a way to capture the unique qualities of color, shape and pattern of the leaves he collected over time. These luminescent, almost painterly portraits of leaves will be shown together for the first time in Genius Loci, his second solo exhibition at 440 Gallery. Opening on Thursday, October 24, 2013, with a reception for the artist from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, the exhibition will run through Sunday, December 1, 2013. The 440 Gallery is located at 440 Sixth Avenue, in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.

When Bovo brought leaves home to examine them more carefully, he realized that although they were essentially a flat structure, the process of drying out would twist them into complex, distorted shapes. He flattened leaves between two sheets of glass to appreciate their true shapes and their delicate patterns of colors and veins. There was a brief time that these leaves remained vibrant. Bovo experimented to find a way to photograph them - sometimes right away, sometimes waiting a few days to let the leaves decay a bit between the glass sheets. Ultimately, Bovo re-created a light-box effect by standing the glass sheets up in a window. He placed a sheet of white paper onto the back of the glass sandwich to diffuse the light coming from behind the leaves. Bovo used a digital camera to take very straightforward photos, and applied a little digital manipulation for a bit of contrast. The resulting larger-than-life leaf images are visually fascinating and often haunting.

Tom Bovo is a second generation Brooklyn native. He studied painting and printmaking at Columbia University under noted artists such as print makers Andre Racz and Robert Blackburn, as well as painters David Lund and Leon Goldin. Tom has been working almost exclusively in photography since 1985. Although heavily influenced by abstract expressionist painters, his photography influences are Eadweard Muybridge, Andre Kertesz, and Diane Arbus. His work has been shown in galleries nationwide, including the Rush Arts Gallery in New York City, Museum of Computer Art in Brooklyn, NY, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, and Caladan Gallery, Cambridge, MA.