Tierney Gearon at Jackson Fine Art

 

Atlanta-born photographer Tierney Gearon will open a show of new work entitled Explosure at Jackson Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta on October 30, 2009, running through January 16, 2010. Gearon, whose past work draws on the approaches and subject matter familiar to us from southern photographers Sally Mann and Ralph Eugene Meatyard, often asks her viewers to contemplate difficult, highly personal subject matter.

The images in Explosure involve multiple exposures to create imaginary worlds characterized by ironic, awkward, and challenging juxtapositions. I saw this work in Los Angeles earlier this year. It is stunningly complex visually. Elements familiar from Gearon's earlier work are also present here, but are treated with new subtlety through Gearon's employment of overlapping images. In light of this work, much of what passes for fine art photography  in the current scene appears dull and banal. I strongly recommend this show.

Gearon will give a talk about her work at the High Museum of Art on Thursday, Oct 29th, at 7pm. 

Burk Uzzle at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts

Distinguished North Carolina photographer Burk Uzzle is having a show of his work at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, running from September 17 through Saturday, November 7th, 2009. This show, entitled "Burk Uzzle's Woodstock and other Americana," features Uzzle's iconic images of he Woodstock Festival as well as other images documenting life in rural and small-town America. He recently has had a show of this body of work at the Lawrence Miller Gallery in NYC.

A native of Raleigh, Uzzle has had a distinguished career as a photographer, working for Life and serving as a member (and president) of Magnum. He locates himself in the grand tradition of American (and Southern) documentary photography running from the FSA days of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange, with its regard for honesty and engagement with the subject of rural and small-town America.

Uzzel says in a recent interview that "Art photography . . . means fine work representing the same values of devotion to quality of feeling, seeing, craft, and artistic presentation as documentary work." He advises, "Be honest to yourself and to your subject, respect your subject matter, and pay as little attention as possible to what other people think, or how they want to apply definitions and categories to what they perceive is important in your work."

Sounds wise to me.

He currently is engaged in a long-term project photographing rural Applachia with an 8x10 view camera. Since 2006, he has had a studio in Wilson, NC.

Southern Spaces: An Interdisciplinary E-Journal about the South

Just discovered Southern Spaces, a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary electronic journal and forum (published since 2004) which has set out to be "about exploring the real and imagined places of the American South and their connections with the wider world."

Photography is a major part of Southern Spaces. The most recent issue, for example, includes an extensive account of the recent Prop Master exhibit by Susan Harbage Page and Juan Logan at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC.

Other examples of photography in Southern Spaces include Tom Zarilla's essay about the phenomenon of roadside memorials to persons who died in automobile accidents and an essay by Paul Johnson and Robin Conner entitled "Starlit Screens: Preserving Place and Public at Drive-In Theaters."

There is also an extensive archive of images of Southern places.

Tom Rankin, Director of Duke's Center for Documentary Studies, is a member of the editorial board. 

The editors welcome "submissions from scholars, photographers, and visual artists in such areas as geography, southern studies, regional studies, African American, Native, and American Studies, women's studies, LGBTQ studies, and public health."

For submission guidelines, go here.

Stephanie Dowda at Kibbee Gallery

Atlanta photographer Stephanie Dowda opens a photography installation entitled This Time, exploring the chances contained in the moments of our lives. These moments are real and fictitious and This Time explores those relationships through mixed media and photography.

Opening at Kibbee Gallery, 688 Linwood Avenue in Atlanta, with a reception from 6 pm - 9 am on Saturday, October 10th, and closing with a reception and artist's talk on Saturday, October 31st, from 12:30 pm - 3:30 pm.

This show is part of Atlanta Celebrates Photography 2009.