February 17th, Denton, TX: Reception & Lecture for JEG 2015 Photography & Solo Exhibition

About the 2015 Juried Exhibition
April Watson, Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO, served as juror for the 14th Annual Joyce Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition. Twenty- eight artists from throughout the United States and China were selected to exhibit their work. Artists include, Beverly Ahern, Ben Altman, Linda Alterwitz, Bennie Flores Ansell, Sarah Austin, Christine Carr, Bryon Darby, Marcus DeSieno, Garrett Hansen, Sharon Lee Hart, Abbey Hepner, John Holmgren, Paul Hooven, Allison Jarek, Priya Kambli, Janna Langholz, Holly Lay, Andy Mattern, Katie Newton, Ashley Raasch, Heather Ross, Jiehao Su, Jennifer Tremblay, Marydorsey Wanless, Angela Franks Wells, Linda Wilson, and Christine Zuercher.

2015 JEG Solo Exhibition Award
Selected by Elizabeth Siegel, Associate Curator of Photography, Art Institute of Chicago

Clare Benson, The Shepherd’s Daughter
My work is deeply rooted in my family history. After the death of my mother when I was eleven years old, I became increasingly curious about notions of family, memory, and mortality. I was raised by my father: an avid hunter, archery champion, and former hunting guide in the Alaskan wilderness. Growing up amidst the hunting culture of northern Michigan, I learned to see hunting as a tradition that ties humans to the natural world; a ritual that speaks to notions of mortality and the interconnectedness of life within a larger system. Before my father, my grandmother was a hunter and before that my great-grandmother, and long before that the stars made up constellations that told stories of the greatest hunts. In my work, the nuances of hunting and the rugged northern landscape of my childhood are woven with narratives of genealogy and gender, memory and mythology, time and space.”