During the pandemic, I created photographs of my local environment as a means of escapism. I also wanted to achieve a sense of freedom from being out in the world in open spaces. The photographs are printed at the size of postcards and act as a kind of message to myself to document my wanderings. I have also inverted the colors and tones of my images and used other image variances to create an uncanny visual quality. This suggests an “upside down” or another world that may not be visible to the naked eye but is felt in the anxiety about the pandemic and the evolving variants. These image adjustments can also refer to medical imaging like x-rays of lungs damaged by COVID-19. At the same time, they imply a sense of foreboding due to environmental damage and climate change.
You can see that there are loose prints on old furniture as well as framed photographs on the walls. I wanted the viewer to have an intimate hand-held relationship to the work. Viewers were encouraged to pick up the photographs. They could make themselves comfortable by sitting down on the chairs placed next to various tables. The furniture was old and somewhat worn to give a nostalgic, domestic experience. I also wanted the viewers to have a more formal relationship to the framed photographs. This way, the exhibition straddled the line between "white cube" space and "lived in" space.
Click here to see all of the photographs in this series.
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
Installation view of Variant, The Sheldon, 2022
This is a collaborative project with Brett Williams. It is still ongoing.
In 2016, Brett’s father died and we inherited four acres in rural Missouri. This land has been in Brett’s family more than 100 years. His grandparents lived there before abandoning it in 2005. They left two connected house trailers filled with their everyday items (readymades).
Brett’s family is working class and has always valued symbols that signify success in the United States. Two of these symbols are ownership and tradition. The site we inherited is a questionable windfall because it was neglected for 14 years and is in an abject state of rot and ruin. Over the years people have broken into, squatted in, and vandalized the structures leaving the contents scattered inside and out. On the other hand, inheriting property reminds us of the privilege we have as white, middle class people. It is something we own and can transform into whatever we want. As a result, we feel the burden of legacy to do something meaningful with this gift.
We started visiting the property in 2018 to photograph and collect objects. Although, we use archeological techniques such as collecting, cleaning, and sorting, we go beyond the production of an “objective record” of this property and the memories associated with it. Instead, we are creating an uncanny, constructed document of the site and its history that also reflects a sense of pride, trauma, and ambiguity.
Sometimes, we construct still life memento mori on-site in the trailers with objects that we found there. The objects belonged to Brett’s grandparents, father, uncle, and cousins. We also incorporated photographic platters in many of the memento mori in the trailers. Jamie created these platters from photographs she made while we traveled across the U.S. They reference the kitsch from our families’ personal histories because it was the dominant visual culture in our houses growing up.
We are also using the photographs of the site and the objects collected there to make assemblage sculpture and installations inspired by Roland Barthes’ concept of punctum. The term punctum is associated mainly with photography and Barthes defines it as a puncture, stain, or indelible mark. Although, photography is a prominent part of our project, we are also emphasizing the punctum present in the found objects collected at the site. They, too, produce this stain which represents the burden and privilege of an inheritance that must be cleaned up and reckoned with.
At the same time, this project presents a rich opportunity for artistic development for both of us. We are using some of the same materials and techniques we have used individually in the past. However, we are now combining them together in a collaborative practice which has yielded art with different qualities than our work had separately. Collaboration also gives this project the benefit of two different perspectives on a personal subject. Brett has a weighty connection to the site and the objects there because it is part of his family history while Jamie has a limited relationship to it. This gives the project multiple registers: an intimate sensibility combined with a distanced, detached quality.
Blind Spot, Boy Scout flag, plastic garland, plastic wall sconce, calendar, archival pigment prints, ceramic figurine, porcelain mug, hunting vest, 2019
Installation view of Inheritance, Applebee Gallery, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, 2020
Collapse, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Grandma and Grandpa, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Inheritance, archival pigment print, 13 x 19 inches, 2019
Expect the Best and Accept Nothing Less, books, melamine photo platters, archival pigment prints, plastic bowls, plastic Jell-O mold, books, Boy Scout paraphernalia, bag of shotgun shells, toothbrush cover, spool of ribbon, leather rifle strap, plastic margarine lid, ceramic figurine, glass mug, family construction company letterhead, plastic cocktail fork, and bath brush on 4 x 8 feet paneling and plywood tabletop mounted on wooden saw horses, 2019
Betsy Ross Tabletop, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Absence in Color, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Installation view of Inheritance, Applebee Gallery, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, 2020
I’m Dying Here – Good to the Last Drop, coffee cans, rusty nails in jars, cookie tin, plastic garland, LED light curtain, popcorn tin, wood, electric motor, power supply, linear bearings, articulated metal rod, power strip, wooden shelf, 2019
Sanctuary, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Treasure, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Gift, wood pedestal, crocheted afghan, wood picture frame, ceramic tile, wood bowl stand, snake skin, archival pigment print, 2020
Detail of Gift
Memorial Library, Children’s Britannica encyclopedias, plastic garland, archival pigment print, 2020
Mike, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
History, patterned blanket, wood pedestal, framed archival pigment print, Tupperware bowl, 2020
Detail of History
Accept Nothing Less, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Cookie Cutter, wood IKEA table, wood and plexiglass vitrine, archival pigment prints, Boy Scout patches, plastic lid, plastic cookie cutters, picture frame, can opener, framed c-print with broken glass, paper documents, 2020
Detail of Cookie Cutter
Detail of Cookie Cutter
Installation view of Inheritance, Applebee Gallery, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, 2020
Brett Holding Brett, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Mountaintop, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Death May Be Better Than This, archival pigment print, 17 x 22 inches, 2019
Installation view of Inheritance, Applebee Gallery, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, 2020
Installation view of Inheritance, Applebee Gallery, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, IL, 2020
From 2013 to 2016, I made a number of road trips back and forth across the United States. As a result of my travels, I created photographic souvenir platters that exist at the intersection of kitsch object and art object. With these photographs, I am examining a double-consciousness between romanticizing aspects of the American experience while acknowledging the problems and inaccuracies of these kinds of concepts and representations.
For me the kitsch souvenir functions in a number of different ways. It is an accessible and intimate object that is familiar to many of us. In fact, I am appropriating the kitsch form from my own personal history because it was the dominant visual culture in my white, middle class, Midwestern house growing up. The souvenir platter also uses a sense of humor by tapping into a cultural nostalgia for an idealistic past that never really existed – “a fading American dream.”
On the other hand, my platters challenge the heroic, masculine associations of landscape photography which often has very declarative, large format, and highly detailed images. My platters feminize American landscape images with their plastic round edges, smaller format, and domestic, decorative connotations. They are improvisational and subtle and commemorate the everyday with their vernacular preciousness.
At the same time, the souvenir platters question the desire to believe in illusions and point to the complexity of American myths in our culture. Several of the platters explore the often contradictory juncture between concepts of open space and freedom, environmental protections, and the relationship of humans and the wilderness. Other platters complicate American myths such as the backyard grill, the prison system, post-industrial decline, and, of course, cowboys.
Ultimately, though, the platters are performative objects and function in an interdependent relationship with their surrounding context. Because this project engages with themes of nostalgia, decoration, and landscape it can be placed into contexts in which it complicates the presentation of period interiors, the history of decorative objects, and the history of landscape representation. The platters can also exist in a lived, domestic space in which they are responsive to the site of someone’s household and become part of a collaborative, lived exhibition in a home. In addition, the platters can also be a means to experience the qualities of an unused domestic site. Please see the American Dilemma Installation Views section of this website for an example.
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2013
(Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia, PA)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2013
(Detroit, MI)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2013
(Pittsburgh, PA)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2014
(Southern Illinois)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2013
(Meramec State Park, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2013
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2014
(Detroit, MI)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2014
(Detroit, MI)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2014
(Sullivan, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2014
(Louisiana, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2014
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2014
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(River Forest, IL)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(Route 66 State Park, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(Valley Park, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(Valley Park, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(Washington, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2015
(Key West, FL)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Grayton Beach, FL)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Naples, FL)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Ringgold, GA)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Clarksville, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(St. Louis, MO)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Philip, SD)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Deadwood, SD)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Devil’s Tower National Monument, WY)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Butte, MT)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Deer Lodge, MT)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(North Platte, NE)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Las Vegas, NV)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Pahrump, NV)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Las Vegas, NV)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Las Vegas, NV)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Death Valley National Park, CA)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Buffalo, WY)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Alaska Highway)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Anchorage, AK)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(near Homer, AK)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Homer, AK)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Exit Glacier, AK)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Exit Glacier, AK)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2016
(Alaska Highway)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Glennallen, AK)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Homer, AK)
American Mythologies, photograph on melamine platter, 10 x 14 inches, 2017
(Denali, AK)
Selected works from my series, American Mythologies, were included in American Dilemma, a three-person exhibition in an apartment gallery. This gallery is housed in a formerly abandoned building and is part of the Granite City Art and Design District (GCADD). It is located directly in the shadow of U.S. Steel which was largely idle at the time of the exhibition.
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters and plates by Jamie Kreher and painting by Sarah Paulsen
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters and plates by Jamie Kreher, painting by Sarah Paulsen, and drawing by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters by Jamie Kreher and painting by Sarah Paulsen
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platter by Jamie Kreher and drawing by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platter by Jamie Kreher and drawings by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters and plates by Jamie Kreher and paintings by Sarah Paulsen
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters and plates by Jamie Kreher, paintings by Sarah Paulsen, and drawings by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters and plates by Jamie Kreher, painting by Sarah Paulsen, and drawings by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters by Jamie Kreher and drawing by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platter by Jamie Kreher and drawing by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters by Jamie Kreher, paintings by Sarah Paulsen, and drawings by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platter by Jamie Kreher, painting by Sarah Paulsen, and drawing by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platter by Jamie Kreher, painting by Sarah Paulsen, and drawing by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters and plates by Jamie Kreher and drawings by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platter and plate by Jamie Kreher and painting by Sarah Paulsen
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platter by Jamie Kreher, paintings by Sarah Paulsen, and drawings by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters by Jamie Kreher and paintings by Sarah Paulsen
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Platters and plates by Jamie Kreher, painting by Sarah Paulsen, and drawings by Daniel Stumeier
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
Installation view of American Dilemma, GCADD, 2016
For this exhibition, I presented hundreds of small photographs that explore overwhelming cultural and personal photographic accumulation, the ubiquity of hand held photographic devices, the snap shot, and the photographic art object.
Viewers were encouraged to physically handle the photographs in order to foreground their existence as everyday objects and to raise questions about preciousness, rarity, meaning, and monumentality.
Click here to see all of the photographs in this exhibition.
Installation view of Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
Installation view of Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
Detail of Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
Detail of Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
Installation view of Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
Summer to Fall, 2011, single channel video, no sound
Opening reception for Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
(Photo by Andrew James)
Opening reception for Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
(Photo by Andrew James)
Opening reception for Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
(Photo by Andrew James)
Opening reception for Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
(Photo by Andrew James)
Opening reception for Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
(Photo by Andrew James)
Opening reception for Equivalents, Good Citizen Gallery, 2012
(Photo by Andrew James)
For this series, I created photographic documentation of empty interior spaces of commerce and then used these source images to create digital collages suggestive of their architectural beginnings. In some of the pieces, I use a familiar convention of advertising in the form of large-scale vinyl banners to transform these images of privately owned spaces into public pictorial monuments.
The banners and framed, repeating photographs also suggest the patterns and illumination of stained glass windows which historically narrated a spiritual transcendence. Together these forms of visual communication comprise a chapel-like space of the “advertisements” which surround the viewer. This creates a contemplative environment to suggest these empty spaces could be active sites of social and economic transformation as their great numbers point to the structural problems of our economy.
Fundamentals 1, c-print, 14 x 11 inches, 2008
Fundamentals 4, c-print, 14 x 11 inches, 2008
Fundamentals 8, inkjet on vinyl, 7 x 8.5 feet, 2009
Fundamentals Study, inkjet on vinyl, 7 x 7 feet, 2009
Fundamentals 7, inkjet on vinyl, 7 x 5.6 feet, 2009
Fundamentals Overland 6, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 8, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 9, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 3, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 7, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 1, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 5, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 2, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland 4, c-print, 20 x 20 inches, 2010
Fundamentals Overland, single channel video, no sound, 2010
Installation view of Fundamentals at STLCC-FP Gallery of Contemporary Art, 2010
Installation view of Fundamentals at STLCC-FP Gallery of Contemporary Art, 2010
Installation view of Fundamentals at STLCC-FP Gallery of Contemporary Art, 2010
Feelings of anxiety about the sustainability of our suburban landscape mingled with a love of the mass-produced geometric forms found within this setting fuel my investigations. I drive through the car-oriented built environment foraging for structures that are overlooked, ordinary, outdated and unused. Then, I re-imagine these structures in order that they evoke something rooted in and yet beyond themselves. To achieve these ends, I utilize attributes associated with mass production such as repetition and homogeneity to create serial imagery, patterns and formations.
As I engage issues associated with abstraction and representation my ambition is that these composite photographs transform elements from the everyday into something worthy of contemplation. At the same time, I want my work to convey a celebration of repetition and banality while acknowledging a tension rooted in the negative impact the car-oriented environment may have on our lives.
Untitled 1, inkjet print, 12 x 16 inches, 2006
Untitled 2, inkjet print, 12 x 16 inches, 2006
Untitled 3, c-print, 24 x 32 inches, 2006
Untitled 4, c-print, 24 x 32 inches, 2006
Untitled 5, c-print, 30 x 35 inches, 2006
Untitled 6, c-print, 20 x 60 inches, 2006
Untitled 7, c-print, 12 x 12 inches, 2006
Can’t See the Dennys for the Trees, c-print, 20.5 x 30 inches, 2006
Modernist Mountain, c-print, 12 x 16 inches, 2006
Inter, c-print, 25 x 40 inches, 2007
International, c-print, 30 x 30 inches, 2007
Kingdom, c-print, 30 x 39 inches, 2007
Station, c-print, 30 x 35 inches, 2007
Signal, c-print, 24 x 36 inches, 2007
Railroaded, c-print, 30 x 35 inches, 2007
Installation view of Re-constructions at Ellen Curlee Gallery, 2008
Installation view of Re-constructions at Ellen Curlee Gallery, 2008
Installation view of Re-constructions at Ellen Curlee Gallery, 2008
Installation view of Re-constructions at Ellen Curlee Gallery, 2008
Installation view of Re-constructions at Ellen Curlee Gallery, 2008
Installation view of Re-constructions at Ellen Curlee Gallery, 2008
This series of large color photographs are partially literal in nature because they document actual structures that exist. However, they are also somewhat invented in that they are reductions of what was originally photographed in the full frame. This results in a lone parking lot island in the midst of an empty white field.
Through this process, I hope to endow these pictures with an ambivalent subjectivity which represents a conflicted relationship to these environments - a relationship imbued with humor and pathos.
Appropriate Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Bogey Hills, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Chesterfield, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Depot Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Directional Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Grandview, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Grassy Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Kmart Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Monolith Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
New Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Real Estate Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Rocky Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Shop and Save Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Singular Island, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Westport, c-print, 24 x 34 inches, 2005
Installation view of Some Islands at CMSU Art Center Gallery, 2006
Installation view of Some Islands at CMSU Art Center Gallery, 2006
