PALM SPRINGS, CALIF.- Palm Springs Art Museum is presenting an exhibition of artist Jennifer Karady, who has developed a series of photographs that relate the experiences of U.S. veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while making evident the human cost of their service to our country. The exhibition, Jennifer Karady: In Country, Soldiers' Stories From Iraq and Afghanistan, is on view December 13 through March 29, 2015 at Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs.

Karady's narrative photographs begin with personal histories gleaned through an extensive interview process with the soldiers and their families. Her images capture the conditions of warfare that fighting an insurgency has created, through dramatic portraits that reveal the psychological moments when war memories and everyday civilian life collide. The text that accompanies each photograph is derived directly from the words of the soldiers themselves.

The surreal juxtapositions literally "bring the war home" by introducing scenes from war in Iraq or Afghanistan into our every day, and otherwise ordinary lives - a sight we are accustomed to viewing as something happening in a far-away, foreign location. Karady's images take us beyond the polarized political views of the war and provide an opportunity for dialogue about the war's impact on the soldiers and the personal costs they bear, often far out of the public eye.

The Photography Collection Council of Palm Springs Art Museum commissioned a photograph to be included in this exhibition, which is the latest in a series of commissions throughout the country. The council partnered with BoxoPROJECTS, an artist's residency in Joshua Tree, to provide Karady with the resources she needed in order to accomplish the commission. Notably, the location is only an hour away from Twenty-nine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, which serves as the U.S. training ground for the wars in the Middle East.