Scott Alario

Scott Alario was born in New Haven, CT in 1983 and currently lives and works between Providence, RI, and Alfred, NY, where he is a visiting assistant professor in the School of Art and Design at Alfred University. He received his MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2013. His work has been included recently in exhibitions at Louis B. James, NY, 2013-14, and ClampArt, NY, 2013. In 2011 Alario was named one of seven emerging photographers to watch by Art New England. He is the recipient of a 2012 Fellowship Merit Award from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Alario's work is currently on view in a solo exhibition (til July 18) at Kristen Lorello, NY. 

What We Conjure 

I’m in the process of a body of work that has no end in sight. What We Conjure is an autobiographical story, a contemporary folk tale, one that I’m creating along with my partner, our five-year old and our dog.

The work consists of pictures that are made while tracking and documenting, collaboratively inventing and constructing. I follow intuition, daydreams, our daughter’s instruction, or carefully sketched out ideas; and I set them before a large format view camera. Using an 8 x 10 inch film camera connects me directly to the history of photography, and specifically, to a history of the family photograph. It’s a process I’ve come to love regardless how counter-intuitive it may seem amid today’s picture making technology. The view camera’s fidelity and rendering of tone is unrivaled, and its presence with a sitter creates a performance, its own unique drama.


I’m exploring my role as father through these pictures, and occasionally appear on the other side of the lens, implicated in the story we weave. There was a point when I found myself wandering, looking for a photograph, with fingers crossed. When I became a parent I felt an urge to tell stories and so set out to make a fable for my daughter. Along the way, reality has leaked into our myth. We are on a search for the spiritually significant, the magic in every day. What will we find that’s worth passing down? What will we conjure?