What It Means to Hold the Light (Femme Locale: Charmed, Amherst MA)
Light finds its way in. Always.
That's what I kept thinking as I finished How the Light Gets In — a black and white diptych that now feels less like something I made and more like something I had to make.
I'm honored to share that it's showing as part of Femme Locale: Charmed, a group exhibition at the Mill District General Store & Art Gallery in Amherst, MA. The show opens May 3 and runs through June 25, 2026.
If you're local, I'd love to see you at the opening reception: Friday, May 8, 5–7 PM.
Nikki Gardner, How the light gets in (diptych 2), 2026, archival pigment print.
What this work is about
How the Light Gets In began the way most of my work does: intuitively, in response to a moment. I wasn't constructing images so much as receiving them — a figure caught in motion, a butterfly mid-flight, a hand reaching toward a stem in a jar. The natural world kept appearing alongside the human one, not as backdrop but as mirror.
The diptychs are printed as negatives, which inverts the expected relationship between light and shadow. What is usually rendered dark becomes luminous. The brightest points in each image — the places where light actually entered the original scene — become the most visible, most insistent.
I found that working in negative made something true about memory: we don't always hold the full picture. We hold what stood out. We hold the light.
The pairings ask you to stay in that space of association — between a figure and a cloud formation, between a glowing torso and scattered bokeh, between a reaching hand and a blur of a woman in motion. I'm interested in what stories we build at those edges. What it means to transform an image into its own opposite and find it somehow more honest.
That question — of honesty, of what a photograph can hold — is at the center of everything I make. It's also, I think, why being photographed can feel like such a vulnerable and meaningful thing. When the light is right, and the moment is received rather than forced, something true shows up in the frame.
About the show
Femme Locale: Charmed brings together work by women and femme-identifying artists rooted in the Pioneer Valley. The Mill District General Store & Art Gallery in Amherst is one of those spaces that feels genuinely alive with creative community — the kind of place where art doesn't feel separate from everyday life.
Exhibition details
Exhibition dates: Sunday, May 3 – Thursday, June 25, 2026 Opening reception: Friday, May 8, 5–7 PM Location: Mill District General Store & Art Gallery, Amherst, MA
Come see it
There's something about seeing a photograph in person that a screen can't replicate. The scale, the texture, the way light actually falls across a print — it changes what a piece says to you.
If you've ever wanted to see my fine art work in a gallery setting, this is a beautiful opportunity. I'll be at the reception on Friday the 8th and would genuinely love to connect.
If you can't make it to Amherst, fine art prints from my studio are available — reach out anytime to talk about what might be right for your space.
Nikki Gardner of Nikki Gardner Studio (Northampton, MA) is exhibiting How the Light Gets In, a black and white diptych photograph, as part of Femme Locale: Charmed at the Mill District General Store & Art Gallery in Amherst, MA. The exhibition runs May 3 through June 25, 2026, with an opening reception on Friday, May 8, 5–7 PM. The work is fine art photography exploring memory, light, and the natural world, printed as negatives to invert the relationship between light and shadow. Fine art prints are available through Nikki Gardner Studio.
