KANSAS CITY, MO.- Ten photographers weave together influences from literature, history, music, and folklore, to tell compelling stories about people and rural communities in the exhibition Strange and Familiar Places, opening at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City February 1, running through July 20. This exhibition, featuring 26 large-scale contemporary works, highlights subjects in the Midwest, West, South, and Southwestern United States, challenging regional stereotypes and emphasizing the photographers’ deep connections to these places. Many of the photographs were recently acquired by the Nelson-Atkins and will be on view for the first time.
“The 10 artists in this exhibition are wonderfully creative storytellers,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Director & CEO of the Nelson-Atkins. “Their intimate photographs deepen and enrich our understanding of their subjects, challenging our preconceptions of these people and their communities.”
“We are excited to share with our audiences these recent acquisitions, the majority of which were made possible through the generosity of the Hall Family Foundation,” said April Watson, Senior Curator, Photography. “Each of these incredibly talented artists uses photography to spark our imaginations and emphasize the humanity of their subjects.”
The 10 artists featured in this exhibition are: Holly Lynton, Terry Evans, Lara Shipley, Antone Dolezel, Elise Kirk, Kristine Potter, Rahim Fortune, RaMell Ross, Laura McPhee, and Bryan Schutmaat.
The artists take a variety of approaches, often pairing portraiture and landscape views using both staged and documentary-style techniques. Holly Lynton traveled across the country for her series Bare-Handed, creating intimate, gestural portraits of individuals and families who eschew modern industrial farming methods and work directly with the land. Celebrated artist Terry Evans, who has repeatedly photographed the native Kansas prairie for 50 years, continues to make new discoveries. In her recent composite landscapes, she layers multiple perspectives to immerse viewers in this unique and beloved terrain. Lara Shipley and Antone Dolezel, originally from the Ozarks, explore the region’s enduring Spook Light legend, wherein ghosts and demons are said to appear at the end of a remote road known as the Devil’s Promenade.
Elise Kirk, who grew up in a small Missouri town, left the area for many years before returning to Lawrence, Kansas, where she now resides. Kirk’s poignant, large-scale photographs from her series Mid--convey both the rootedness and restlessness she feels within this place she calls home.
Kristine Potter draws upon the lore of American murder ballads for her series Dark Waters. Set in the densely wooded forests and half-hidden waterways of the American South, Potter conjures visions of these songs’ tragic heroines as if they have risen from the dead to haunt the present and avenge their murders at the hands of jealous or jilted men. Rahim Fortune uses the historic weight of black and white photography to explore traditions that shape Black identity and self-creation as forged in the landscape of his childhood in East Texas and neighboring regions. Photographer and filmmaker RaMell Ross, who lived for seven years in Hale County Alabama, challenges the myth of Blackness he sees as entangled in the roots of Southern mythology- a myth that photography itself has helped perpetuate.
The grandeur of the American West serves as the setting for Laura McPhee’s lush, large-scale views of the sparsely populated communities in Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley. In her series River of No Return, McPhee focuses on the close relationships people form with this land through ranching, fishing, and conservation efforts. In his series Sons of the Living, Bryan Schutmaat pairs haunting portraits of hardscrabble drifters with brooding, poetic views of the desert Southwest, highlighting the relationship between his subjects and the region’s unsparing, damaged environment.
All of the photographs in Strange and Familiar Places challenge the viewer to slow down and consider the cultural tapestry of influences that shape our perceptions of these often-overlooked regions.
