NEWS


RECENT/UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS, SCREENINGS, PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS:
(click links in bold or see blog entries below for more info)

Recent and Upcoming Exhibitions:
  • Just as Your Ship's Drifting in They're Pushing Out the Tide, Tempus Volta, Tampa, FL, March 6-May 7, 2024 (curated by Jenal Dolson)
  • Context 2024, Filter Photo, Chicago, IL, Mar. 22-Apr. 27, 2024 (curated by Sarah Kennel)
  • Mapping Perspectives, Throughline, Houston, TX, Mar. 8-30, 2024 (curated by Samantha Johnston)
  • In the Shadow of the Moon, Windgate Museum of Art, Hendrix College, Jan. 26-Apr. 13, 2024 (curated by Christian Cutler)
  • What Has Been Will Be Again, SRO Gallery, Texas Tech University, Jan 10-Feb. 8, 2024
  • SPE SC/SE Members Exhibition, Schley Gallery, Corn Center for the Visual Arts, Columbus State University, Columubus, GA (juried by Erin Dunn) October 10-21, 2023
  • Infinite Weight/Present Histories: University of West Georgia 2023 National Juried Photography Exhibition, Vault Gallery, University of West Georgia, Newnan, GA (curated by Maria Kelly) Oct. 20-Nov. 17, 2023
  • Once, Cleve Carney Museum of Art, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL, Oct. 7, 2023-Jan. 7, 2024
  • Contextualize, Pavilion 333, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany, June 16-18, 2023
  • Between Life and Land: Identity, Kimball Art Center, Park City, UT, April 21-July 9, 2023
  • Context 2023, Filter Photo, Chicago, IL, Mar. 10-Apr. 22, 2023
  • What Has Been Will Be Again, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, Feb. 27-March 31, 2023
  • Photo Now, Center for Photography at Woodstock Kingston, NY, Nov. 5, 2022-Feb. 5, 2023 

Recent Select Publications:

Recent Select Awards:
  • Utah Division of Arts & Museums Artist Career Advancement Award
  • Utah State University Caine College of the Arts 2024 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award
  • Utah State University Caine College of the Arts 2023 Faculty Researcher of the Year Award
  • Gomma Black and White Awards, Finalist
  • Once, Cleve Carney Museum of Art, Best in Show
  • Urbanautica Institute Awards 2022, Winner (category: Anthropology & Territories)
  • Filter Photo Contexts 2023 Juror’s Award, Honorable Mention
  • 2022 Aftermath Project Grant finalist award
  • 2021 Critical Mass TOP 50


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03.14.24 // SPRING EXHIBITIONS IN HOUSTON, CHICAGO, TAMPA



Works from What Has Been Will Be Again and Snowbird are on view in concurrent exhibitions in Houston, Chicago, and Tampa.  Gallery press releases for each show are below. 

MAPPING PERSPECTIVES
THROUGHLINE COLLECTIVE
, Houston
March 8-30

Throughline will open its first juried exhibition, MAPPING PERSPECTIVES, on Friday, March 8 at 3909 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002, held in conjunction with the biennial photography festival FOTOFEST HOUSTON. An opening reception will take place the same evening, from 6 to 9pm; a special celebration for the juror is planned for the following Friday, March 15, from 6-9pm. Juried by Samantha Johnston, Executive Director & Curator of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), in Denver, Colorado, the exhibition features a broad range of lens-based work by artists from across the United States.

The theme of this year’s FotoFest is “Critical Geography”, which seeks to re-examine traditional Western and historical understandings of geography while expanding these investigations to new realms. In the spirit of this theme, Mapping Perspectives explores power structures, inequalities, and dominant ideologies within and across marked boundaries. Given we live in a world where influence comes from more than geographical coordinates, Mapping Perspectives examines how photographs capture ways in which culture, society, economics, politics, and religion shape our environments.

Participating Artists: Tya Anthony, Barron Bixler, Christa Blackwood, Leah Dyjak, Jesse Egner, Farima Fooladi, Dana Fritz, Gabriela Gamboa, Edward Gia, Vidya Giri, Megan Jacobs, Sam Jentsch, Bree Lamb / Muscle Memory Collective, Morgan Levy, Diane Meyer, Nancy Newberry, Caroline Philippone, Vann Powell, Jared Ragland, Laurie Smith, Chang-Ching Su, Kathleen Tunnell Handel, Johanna Warwick

Juror’s Statement: Boundaries extend far beyond lines on a map. They encompass power structures, inequalities, and dominant ideologies that mold our lived environments and influence our daily interactions. As you navigate this exhibition, I invite you to consider how boundaries shape your own lived experience. What measured boundaries are deconstructed when we seek to find the forces that connect us?-Samantha Johnston, Executive Director & Curator, Colorado Photographic Arts Center

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CONTEXT 2024
FILTER PHOTO
,
Chicago
March 22-April 27

Filter Photo is pleased to announce Context 2024, our tenth annual survey exhibition of contemporary photography. This year's exhibition was juried by Sarah Kennel, the Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and features the work of 23 artists.

"We are inundated on the daily with an ocean of images, yet the clarity, finesse, and power of the photographs in Context 2024 speak to a collective desire for making work that means something, that can cut across the blaring noise. Across portraiture, documentary, landscapeand experimental work, the artists in this exhibition show us that in these troubled and troubling times, photography retains the capacity to reveal, to connect, to delight, and to bear witness, even as the medium continues to evolve and shape-shift. The resurgence of history as a key photographic concern shapes several documentary projects that trace the origins of our collective myth-making; others bear witness to who we are and how we live, both together and apart from each other. Wry, lucid, and penetrating portraits and self-portraits powerfully assert presence and subjectivity and invite us to see identity formation as a subtle, complex, and shifting phenomenon. Some reveal cracks in the American dream, others chart complex global histories, and others still link us to our attachments and our losses, both personal and collective. Pictures, of course, accrue meaning over time and through social engagement. Several artists cannily reuse found imagery or draw on established pictorial traditions to expand meaning. Some interrogate or interrupt photographic conventions and materials as a way to call attention to urgent political, social and environmental issues. Other artists carefully conjure an intimate, tangible sense of place, inviting us to both consider our relationship to our environment and imagine alternative ways of being."
—Sarah Kennel, Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center for Works on Paper, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)

Dr. Sarah Kennel joined the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in 2021 as the inaugural Aaron Siskind Curator of Photography and Director of the Raysor Center for Works on Paper. A specialist in nineteenth and twentieth-century photography, Kennel has curated, published, and presented widely on topics ranging from nineteenth-century French photography and historic photographic processes, to European modernism and understudied women photographers. She has also written extensively on the relationship between painting and photography in nineteenth-century France and completed a dissertation on the relationship between dance and the visual arts in early twentieth-century culture.  Before joining VMFA, Kennel held positions at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Dr. Kennel launched her curatorial career at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Kennel holds a doctorate and a Master of Arts in art history from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University.

Artists: Sara Abbaspour, Jimmie Allen, Peter Cochrane, Yvette Marie Dostani, Matt Eich, Charlotta Hauksdottir, Khim Mata Hipol, R. J. Kern, Tom Lau, Denise Laurinaitis, Tanya Lunina, Andriana Nativio, Laura Allen Noel, Luigino (Louie) Palu, Jason Pevey, John Prince, Jared Ragland, Astrid Reischwitz, Kathryn Rodrigues, Maggie Shannon, Forrest Simmons, Mitchell Squire, Constance Thalken, Brad Ziegler

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Just as Your Ship's Drifting in They're Pushing Out the Tide
TEMPUS VOLTA,
 
Tampa
March 6-May 2

Juried by Jenal Dolson, Just as Your Ship's Drifting in They're Pushing Out the Tide will showcase works from artists Gina Lee Robins, Amber Toplisek, Ian Wilson, Justin Quaid, Brandin Vance, Jared Ragland, Amy Jones and Elizabeth Molitor in TEMPUS VOLTA. Artists were selected from a national open call for works from all backgrounds and by mediums that explore themes of uncertainty, resilience, and change.

About the Juror: Jenal Dolson lives and works in Chicago as an artist and arts professional. She received her MFA in 2020 from the University of South Florida, and her B.A. in 2007 from the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). She has participated in residencies at The Dorland Mountain Arts Colony (Temecula, CA), Tempus Projects (Tampa, FL), Artscape Gibraltar Point (Toronto, ON), and the Vermont Studio Centre (Johnson, VT). Recent exhibitions include the Roper Gallery, Frostburg State University (Frostburg, MA) and the Kimball Arts Center (Chicago, IL). She currently holds the position of gallery director at ANDREW RAFACZ (Chicago, IL) and has a studio space at Mana Contemporary, in Pilsen (Chicago, IL.)

Tempus Projects is dedicated to nurturing established and emerging local, national, and international artists through exhibitions, collaborations, residencies, and events. The non-profit organization promotes artists working in all media, and develops, organizes, and hosts award-winning exhibitions and events within a range of media and a varied survey of artists. Tempus Projects provides a space for culturally diverse artistic expression, dialogue, and reflection contributing to the visual arts community in the Tampa Bay region.

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02.01.24 // SOUTHERN CULTURES: THE SOUTHERN GOTHIC ISSUE



A photo essay featuring works from What Has Been Will Be Again and introductory text by longtime collaborator Catherine Wilkins, Ph.D, is published in the latest issue of Southern Cultures, a peer-reviewed journal by the University of North Carolina’s Center for the Study of the American South.

Gothic South (Vol. 29, No. 4) is guest edited by Kinitra D. Brooks, Ph.D, the Audrey and John Leslie Endowed Chair in Literary Studies at Michigan State University’s Dept. of English. Brooks specializes in the study of black women, genre fiction, and popular culture.

With features including a conversation with National Book Award winnder Jesmyn Ward, photo essay by Kristine Potter, fiction by Rebecca Bengal, the issue unpacks the Gothic South, exploring its haints, hollers, and hoodoo.

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01.26.24 // IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON AT THE WINDGATE MUSEUM OF ART

And light followed the flight of sound..., on view at the Windgate Museum of Art

The One Day Projects book, And light followed the flight of sound..., is featured in the exhibition, In the Shadow of the Moon, at the Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College, Jan. 26-April 13, 2024.  

Inspired by both the natural wonder and symbolic possibilities of the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse, And light followed the flight of sound... collects works by 52 emergent and established photographic artists (see full artist list here) and an essay by Catherine Wilkins, Ph.D.  The handmade accordian book features a foil stamp cover, mylar slip case, and enclosed saddle-stiched zine, and was edited, designed and produced in an edition of 150 (sold out) by Jared Ragland and Eliot Dudik. When the book is displayed in a circle, the accordion reveals a palindromic sequence of images and sculpturally resembles the star-like shape of the sun’s corona visible at the point of eclipse totality.   

From the exhibition press release:
CONWAY, Arkansas—The Windgate Museum of Art at Hendrix College (WMA) on January 26, 2024, will open “In the Shadow of the Moon,” a dynamic, multi-media exhibition centered around humankind’s history and interest in the moon and space, to celebrate the upcoming total solar eclipse. Hendrix College and the central Arkansas region are in the path of totality for the April 8 eclipse, an event that will leave millions in North America awestruck.

Among the most spectacular visible natural phenomena — lightning storms, shooting stars, the aurora borealis — a solar eclipse seems to earn the greatest reverence, and with good reason.

“The star of ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’ is the April 8, 2024, eclipse itself,” says curator Christian Cutler, director of the WMA. “This exhibition is both a celebration and a jumping off point. I hope visitors to ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’ learn and reflect on humankind’s relationship to the Moon and the Sun.” Interpretations of Eclipses through History

Opening January 26 at 5 p.m., “In the Shadow of the Moon” will explore how different cultures have presented and interpreted solar eclipses in art. For instance, visitors will see eclipses portrayed as a dragon or a celestial wolf attempting to swallow the sun and included in the backdrop of European Renaissance crucifixion scenes to set a sorrowful or ominous tone.

The exhibition will also highlight the staying power of the solar eclipse as a worthy artistic subject. Science fiction illustrators, contemporary sculptors, and even video game designers incorporate eclipses into their work. Works by contemporary artists Tyler Nordgren, John W. Tomac, Lenka Konopasek, and Sarah Blood have been selected for the exhibition. “47 Rockets,” a mini-exhibit inside ‘In the Shadow of the Moon’ by Nashville art duo Raina Belleau and Caleb Churchill, will explore history and folklore surrounding the moon with sculpture, video, and photography.

To provide historical context for the works of art, a collection of solar eclipse expedition artifacts will be on display, on loan from the James Lick Observatory in Mount Hamilton, California. Visitors can view scientific instruments, astronomers’ handwritten logbooks, and photographic plates made during expeditions in the late 1800s and early 1900s as far away as Chile, India, and the South Pacific.

The Windgate Museum of Art is the art museum located on the campus of Hendrix College. With a vision to be the premier teaching art museum in Arkansas, the Windgate presents outstanding art exhibitions, compelling educational programs, and invigorating social activities for students, faculty, staff, and visitors to campus. Free and open to all, the museum uses hands-on experiences to train students in all facets of museum work, including curatorial research, collection management, educational and social programming, marketing and communications, as well as all aspects of exhibition research, planning, installation, and evaluation. The Windgate Museum of Art is made possible with major support from the Windgate Foundation and the Alice L. Walton Foundation.

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01.19.24 // 2024 UTAH DIVISION OF ARTS & MUSEUMS ARTIST CAREER ADVANCEMENT AWARD

I am pleased to receive a 2024 Utah Division of Arts & Museums Artist Career Advancement Award to support an in-progress body of work titled Led on as by the promise of a feast spread for us.  A departure from recent photo-ethnographic and historically-based work, Led on documents the quiet and quotidian moments in the spaces and landscapes of my new home in Wellsville, Utah.



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