John Dalterio
An internationally exhibited and reviewed 2D and 3D artist, John Dalterio has served as a teaching artist, youth mentor, and inclusion specialist for municipal agencies and private organizations for over a decade. His personal work has been featured in the Robert Klein Gallery, Bromfield Gallery, Gallery Kayafas, and others. He was selected as one of two artists-in-residence by the ARNA Organization in 2020 and was awarded the MFA Teaching Fellowship at Lesley University in 2021. His artwork has been exhibited throughout the United States, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Peru.
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My work begins with a simple belief: that the extraordinary is not an interruption of daily life, but a quiet undertone that runs through it. I approach the world with patience and attentiveness, allowing familiar places and objects to reveal their hidden contours. When I photograph, I am looking for the moments in which perception deepens and the visible world briefly shows its second life.
One way I understand this process is through what I call the revelatory instant, a counterpart to the classical decisive moment. It is the brief interval in which the world aligns into meaning. I often anticipate these moments before they occur: the instant when ripples on a pond will transform a contrail into a ghostly serpent, or when a drifting cloud will meet a mark on a dam wall and seem to melt into it. These are small flashes of recognition in which the ordinary turns symbolic, and they form just one part of a wider curiosity that shapes everything I make.
Across projects such as Wish, Hyperbola Blue, Nayara, Death! At Frog Pond, and Almagest, I explore thresholds where the real subtly becomes metaphor. I am drawn to places that sit at the edge of certainty: reflections that become apparitions, windows that appear to remember something, houses and landscapes that feel anchored in one world while leaning toward another. These moments of subtle transformation are where my work lives.
My subjects tend to be humble ones: chalk drawings left by children, drifting birds, the siding of a house, light in a basement, the doubling of an aquarium fish, reservoir walls, the patterns left by weather or time. I treat each with equal tenderness. My camera does not impose; it listens. I try to give every ordinary detail its full share of significance. My work is a meditation on the fragile beauty of overlooked things, and a quiet insistence that every mark, shimmer, and occurrence deserves attention.
Some of my work turns inward toward childhood memory. Death! At Frog Pond revisits a moment that reshaped my understanding of harm, guilt, and consequence, transforming it into a personal parable set among lilies and still water. Other projects, like Almagest, expand outward into cosmic space, drawing connections between the domestic and the astronomical, between the near and the immeasurably distant. Whether I am looking at a dog wandering under winter lights or a volcanic ridge seen through satellite imagery, I am seeking the same thing: the interplay of scales and the quiet relationship between them.
Across all of these projects, I return to the sense that the world is always on the verge of revealing its other self. Time feels doubled; childhood flickers through adulthood, and the infinite brushes gently against the mundane. I make photographs to be present for these moments, and to offer viewers a chance to experience them as well.
For me, seeing is an ethical practice. It asks for patience, humility, and openness. Through my images, I hope to encourage a way of looking that treats the everyday as something unfolding, rich with subtle transformations and quiet marvels, waiting for someone with the patience to see.
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MFA, Photography and Integrated Media
Lesley Art + Design
BFA, Photography
The Art Institute of Boston
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Shows & Publications
(Selections)
2018
- Solo Show - “Atropa, Bella Donna” - Site Sensitive Installation
Rhode Island College, Providence, RI
- “Elevated” - Fall, Winter - Archival Pigment Print
Copley Society Gallery, Newbury Street, Boston MA
- “Padre Patria (Fatherland) & Las Orquídeas" - Pyre - Moving Image
Museo Lugar de la Memoria (Museum of Remembrance), Lima, Peru
with Andrew Mroczek and Juan Barbosa-Gabo
- “MFA Thesis Show” - The Lightning Calculator - Interactive Installation
Raizes Gallery, LA+D, Cambridge MA
2017
- "Suggested for You" - Hyperbola Blue - Interactive Installation
Gallery South, Cambridge MA
- "Suggested for You" - Hyperbola Blue - Permanent Virtual Installation
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- “Emanate” - Fluid Infinity Mirror - Kinetic Sculpture
Group Show, Somerville MA
2016
- "Not Even a Mouse" Online Photo Exhibition
Aviary Gallery, Jamaica Plain MA
- Selections from Nayara by John Dalterio and Unanswerable by Mark Hutchinson
Archival Pigment Print Exhibition, Thompson Public Library, Thompson CT
- "The Photographic Book in Digital Times" - Hyperbola Blue - Publishing
Vasa Journal on Images and Culture, Budapest, Hungary - EU/ International
- "Nonlinear" - Hyperbola Blue - Site Sensitive Installation
Gallery South, Cambridge MA
- "Student Exhibition” - Window with Birds - Archival Pigment Print
Photographic Resource Center, Boston MA
- “Hammarlunda Mölla” - Gallery of Creative Processes - Mixed Media
Kalk Gallery, Hammarlunda SWE
- Permanent - "Untitled (HTML5 Bouncing Ball)” - Massive - Poetry
The Garden Review, Mexico City, MX
2015
- "Alternative Process" Print Exhibition
Gallery South, Cambridge MA
- "Night" Online Exhibition
Aviary Gallery, Jamaica Plain MA
- “#repost”
Flakphoto
- "InVision: 2D &3D Landscape" Print Exhibition
Davis Art Gallery, Worcester MA
- "Ode to Summer" Online Exhibition
Aviary Gallery, Jamaica Plain MA
- "One Night Stand" Pop Up Exhibition - Hyperbola Blue Installation,
Carroll and Sons Gallery, Boston MA
2014
- "Taking In" Photobook Publication & Print Exhibition
Laconia Gallery, Boston MA
- “QVCC Alumni Art Show” Print Exhibition
The Silver Circle Gallery & Quinebaug Valley Community College, Putnam CT
- Website Banner Artist
Colortek, Boston MA
- "RA4, One Last Time" C-Print Exhibition
Gallery South, Boston MA
2013
- “Community College Artists’ Show” Print Exhibition
Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School
- “New England's Best Student Photographers” Print Exhibition
Flash Forward Festival, Boston MA
- “First Friday” Print Exhibition
Superlative Skate Shop, Putnam CT
- Photo for Tyler Malek’s Interview
Tattoo Magazine, November Issue
2012
- iSpy: Camera Phone Photography
Kat Kiernan Gallery, Lexington VA
2011
- Best of College Photography
Photographer’s Forum Magazine
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Visiting Artist/ Residencies
2018
- Artist Talk - On Storytelling: Atropa, Bella Donna
Rhode Island College, RI
2016
- Artist Talk - Installation, UX/UI: Hyperbola Blue
Lunder Center - Gallery South, Cambridge MA
- Artist Talk - Pursuing a Career in the Arts
Quinebaug Valley Community College, Danielson CT
- Artist in Residence - The Windmill Project
ARNA Organization, Harlösa SWE
- Artist Talk - Thoughts on Rejected Works
Kalk Gallery, Hammarlunda SWE
- Artist Talk - Creative Process and Installation Presentation
Hammarlunda Mölla, Hammarlunda SWE
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Teaching Experience
2018
- Teaching Artist, A Day Without Art/ ‘No Man’s Land’ Installation
Medicine Wheel Productions, Dorchester MA
- Teaching Artist, My City My Voice - Wakambridge: An Afrofuturistic Imagining of Cambridge’s Future
Gately Youth Center, Cambridge MA
2017
- Teaching Artist, My City My Voice - On Gratitude
Gately Youth Center, Cambridge MA
- Workshop Instructor, Holograms
Gately Youth Center/ Cambridge Creativity Commons, Cambridge MA
- Workshop Instructor, Holograms
Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School/ Cambridge Creativity Commons, Cambridge MA
- Teaching Assistant for Christine Collins' BFA Photography Senior Seminar
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
- Adjunct Faculty Substitute Teacher - Digital Storytelling
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
- Adjunct Faculty - Digital Photography for Non-Majors
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
2015
- Teaching Assistant for Jack Leuders-Booth's Noir
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
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Awards
2017
- MFA in Photography and Integrated Media Teaching Fellowship
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
- The DiSilva Scholarship
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
2016
- The Gipp L. Ludcke Scholarship
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
- LUCAD MFA in Photography - Presidential Scholarship
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
- ARNA's Housing and Materials Grants
Harlösa, SWE
2014
- The Janer Scholarship
Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge MA
2013
- The Quinebaug Valley Community College Foundation Transfer Scholarship
QVCC, Danielson, CT
- The Art Institute of Boston Transfer Portfolio Scholarship
AIB, Boston, MA
2012
- The Steve and Marjolaine Townsend Fine Arts Scholarship
QVCC, Danielson, CT
2011
- The Steve and Marjolaine Townsend Fine Arts Scholarship
QVCC, Danielson, CT
- Photographer's Forum Student Photo Competition Finalist
- Manchester Community College Art Contest Honorable Mention
MCC, Manchester, CT
2010
- Photographer's Forum Student Photo Competition Finalist