Tara Bryan

In August 2023, twelve artists had the privilege of participating in a master class taught by the incomparable Deborah Willis at Anderson Ranch Art Center. Home, Reimaginings explores how we see and interpret concepts of home. We considered homes’ construction and deconstruction. How do we reimagine Home and what is it now?

The workshop encouraged the artists to consider archival photographs, text, and other works that focus on cultural, political, social, economic, and intimate moments. Throughout the workshop, the artists contemplated new questions, and considered moments both comforting and disconcerting. They challenge themselves to refine unfinished projects. Named after the class that facilitated these images, Home, Reimaginings is a group exhibition that celebrates the artists and their different interpretations of Home.

By having the show exhibit in Photoville, it will allow a larger audience to view the work while also promoting the impact of Anderson Ranch master classes. Photoville is dedicated to promoting community and understanding through imagery, making Home, Reimaginings the perfect exhibition to showcase the values of Anderson Ranch Art Center. By exhibiting at Photoville, we are highlighting Anderson Ranch’s master class Home, Reimagings at a national level. Deborah Willis and the participating artists have formed a bond through their respect and love for the archive. This exhibition serves as a celebration of our transformative workshop this past August.

About the Artists

Anwulika Anigbo (b. Nigeria 1987) is a Chicago-based artist tracing the historical and somatic roots of everyday life as it is practiced within blackness through imagery and processes. Her work chronicles and investigates self-determination, presence, knowledge production, and memory. At any given moment we stand at the intersection of histories, embodying and accessing more than what we have personally experienced. How far back and forward can individual and collective memory take the process of self-determination? Anigbo’s work uses familiar personal moments and cultural references to access somatic memory and histories of self-determination layered onto our most rudimentary and interior moments. She uses deep embodiment to make meaning at the intersections of life by rooting her practice in creation as a continuous process of personal and domestic liberation. Anigbo’s work has been exhibited at The Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (South Korea), Chicago Artist Coalition (Chicago), EXPO Chicago with FOR FREEDOMS (Chicago) and the NXTHVN (New Haven). She was recently a 2022-23 Fellow with the Economic Security Project, the December 2022 and January 2023 Artist in Residence at Chicago Athletic Association, a 2021-22 Artist in Residence at the Chicago Artist Coalition, and a 2022 3Arts Ignite Fund Awardee. Her work is included in the collection at 21c Museum, Ryan Lee Gallery, and private collections.

Matthew J. Bailey (b. 2000) is an emerging lens-based artist and commercial photographer currently living in Washington DC. He graduated with a BFA in Photography from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2023. Drawing inspiration from literature, family stories, and research, Matthew creates visual narratives that bridge his roots with his present surroundings. His photography revolves around themes of identity, family history, and ancestry. Through Matthew’s lens, he hopes to intertwine historical narratives with his contemporary experiences. His work invites viewers to contemplate the connections that transcend time and place. Matthew’s photography has been featured in many notable exhibitions and his work is also part of the collection at the Museum of American History in Washington DC.

Tara Bryan’s classical approach to image-making captures authentic moments within constructed storylines. Inspired by fairytales, her intimate portraits are a unique juxtaposition of reality and the imagination. She is motivated by her subjects, working spontaneously to construct each image. Her instinctual desire to connect with people informs her approach to directing subjects. Tara’s photographic style is deeply rooted in her childhood memories. Drawing inspiration from her grandmother’s living room, Tara’s images often reflect the details of the spaces she grew up in. From the ornate curtains to the curated selection of family photos, this nostalgia influences Tara’s aesthetic, weaving a sense of history and tradition into her work. Additionally, Tara taps into the warmth of her childhood church, recalling the comforting glow of candles and the rich wooden architecture. These cherished recollections of her past infuse her images with a distinctive warmth and familiarity, merging her artistic vision seamlessly with the unique personalities of her subjects. Tara is pursuing a BFA in Photographic and Imaging Arts at Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been featured in several group exhibitions, including the 2023 Global Citizen Festival in Central Park, NYC, Anderson Ranch Art Center, and The Colorado Photographic Arts Center.

Robin Flowers-Quinniey is an African American visual artist originally from Buffalo, NY. Since 2019, Robin has dedicated her career as a photographer and artist to subverting society’s collective consciousness toward BIPOC individuals. Constantly finding herself inspired by surrealism, black culture, fashion, and iconic imagery, Robin uses photography as her tool to create a stylized, diverse, and inclusive plane of existence that allows her to visually represent and expand on her thought processes on social discourses such as identity, gender, race, and sexuality. Behind the camera is one of her safe spaces to create; with the help of good music and clear communication, she extends that sentiment to all involved in her image-making process. Whenever Robin picks up her camera, she aims to make her subjects look like works of art. Each image becoming a celebration of those who pose before her.

Lisa-Nichol Herd (b. 2000) is a multiracial visual artist born and raised in Tampa, Florida. She received her BFA in studio art with a concentration in photography at the University of South Florida. Her primary mediums consist of photography, video, and traditional drawing. Her photo-based artwork works democratically and conceptually on themes of community, place, belonging, and identity while edging styles made up of documentary and daydreaming.

Ann Johnson- Born in London, England and raised in Cheyenne, WY, Ann is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University in Texas, where she now teaches, with a BS in Home Economics. She earned an MA in Humanities from the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and an MFA from The Academy of Art University, in San Francisco, with a concentration in printmaking. As a Professor at Prairie View she has received the distinguished President’s Faculty of the Year award, and has repeatedly been recognized as “Art Teacher of the year”. An interdisciplinary artist, Johnson’s passion for exploring issues particularly in the Black community has led to engaging works such as The Hoop Dreamin Collection, a series that explores the social issue of a Hoop Dream. Her installation Converse: Real Talk has been exhibited in Texas, Missouri, and New York. She’s been an artist resident at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA, Project Row Houses, Houston, TX and the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND. In 2013 and 2021 she exhibited in the Texas Biennial. She has been acknowledged as an “Artist to Watch” by the International Review of African American Art and was listed as one of the 10 most transformative artists of 2022 by Black Art in America.

Felicia Megginson‘s lens-based creative practice engages themes related to identity, often probing the cultural, familial, and societal pressures that influence how we define ourselves. About her work, Megginson has said, “multiple moves during childhood have left me feeling a bit untethered and disconnected from community; photography is my antidote to that—it grounds me.” Megginson uses her camera as a filter and a shield, measuring and marking her place in this world as a black woman. Yet her imagery blends the objectivity of a photo documentarian with the ethereal immateriality of allegories and myths. It is a tool that records experiences and reflects emotions. Literary scholar Saidiya Hartman has said writing about the historical past is like using the subjunctive tense, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “…relating to or denoting a mood of verbs expressing what is imagined or wished or possible.” Megginson’s goal with her photographic works is to embody this idea. She has an M.A. in Studio Art from New York University and has earned numerous fellowships, artist residencies, and exhibitions. She participated in the Bronx Museum of Art Artist in the Marketplace program, was the recipient of Polaroid film grant, and artist residencies at the Center for Photography in Woodstock and the Henry Street Settlement. Recent exhibitions include Nine Moments for Now (2018) and Harlem Found Ways (2017) at The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art at Harvard. In 2017, Megginson was one of a group of artists invited by Occupy Museums to exhibit work as part of Debtfair, their submission to the Whitney Biennial.

Anh-Thuý Nguyễn- As a Vietnamese-American female artist, Anh-Thuy Nguyen’s primary artistic source material for the last decade has been an exploration into her history and experiences as an immigrant. Through her artmaking, using photography and extended media, Nguyen investigates cultural differences and personal politics through the use of symbolic meanings, that imbedded with her home, family, and traditions. Nguyen has received grants and fellowships from the Arizona Commissions for the Arts, Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition, among others. She has exhibited work at Tucson Museum of Art, Amarillo Museum of Art, California Museum of Photography, Dallas Museum of Art, and Chiang Mai University Art Museum. Her projects have been written about in the Boston Globe, Southwest Contemporary Magazine, Art and Seek (KERA TX), and OZY Magazine. Nguyen received her MFA in Photography/Video from Southern Methodist University. She holds a BFA in Photography from the University of Arizona and a BA in Economic Geography from the University of Social Sciences & Humanities in Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam. She splits her time between Tucson, Arizona and Ho Chi Minh city, Viet Nam.

Dominic M Pearson- Dominic M. Pearson earned a BA in Art History from Emory University and has worked for more than 20 years in Entertainment, Culture and The Arts. He is currently working with Dr. Jordana Saggese at The University of Maryland pursuing an MA in Art History with a concentration in African Diaspora Studies, which will enable him to galvanize his already interdisciplinary skill set, bring his network into academia, and better guide students towards the practical application of concepts that center Blackness in transnational contexts. Dominic is particularly interested in how multi-sensorial installations bring together visuality and sound to reflect the multidimensionality of Black Diasporic Identity. How do we hear and see Diaspora? What informs the way we listen to images and see sound?

Elisabeth Relin- Born: Rochester, New York, 1952

Education: Brighton High School, Rochester, NY 1969

Finger Lakes Community College, Associates Degree, 1975

Colorado State University, B.S. in Consumer Sciences, 1979

University of Colorado, MFA in Photography, 1987

Resident of Colorado since 1975

Li Rothrock is an artist who lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona. Her work explores themes of memory, specifically through the lens of inheritance, and is typified by a preoccupation with how identity and personal relationships to place are impacted by what has been passed down. She has held solo exhibitions across the United States and internationally. Her work has appeared in Glamour Magazine, Vice News, and Al Jazeera. She holds a Bachelor of Science in pure mathematics from Wheaton College, and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in photography at Arizona State University.

Deborah Willis is a professor and Chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University and director of NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture. She teaches courses on photography and imaging, iconicity, and cultural histories visualizing the black body, women, and gender. Her research examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, photographic history of slavery and emancipation, contemporary women photographers, and beauty.

HOME, REIMAGININGS

Featuring: Various Artists

Curated by: Dr. Deborah Willis Tara Bryan

Locations

ON VIEW AT: Container Banner 8

• #Cultural Representation
• #Fine Art
• #Food
• #Home
• #Migration
• #parenthood
• #Relationships