JUSTIN SCHMITZ, CHRISTINA SEELY, KRISTA WORTENDYKE, TONIKA JOHNSON
GUEST CURATOR: TERRY EVANS
MAY 5 - JULY 25, 2021
Photography can be a powerful tool for documenting and telling stories. Terry Evans has used this medium for decades, giving voice to communities and land, telling the stories of our connections to the environment and each other. In this exhibition Evans takes a turn as a curator, working with four photographers who all explore telling stories relevant to their generation and communities.
Tonika Johnson | Map Twins, Wade and Nanette | 2017
Tonika Johnson, Justin Schmitz, Christina Seely, and Krista Wortendyke probe contemporary issues through their lenses. Each examines their personal experiences and home communities to uncover issues and ideas that add to the larger conversations around systemic racism, climate change, and gun violence. Although the projects these photographers undertake delve into serious issues, the underlying themes are about building connections, bridging differences, about seeing and being seen.
Tonika Johnson (Chicago) uses photography to build connections between residents of Chicago’s north and south sides and spark conversations between strangers that shed light on the structural differences between the neighborhoods.
Justin Schmitz (Chicago) photographs moments in the lives of Midwest American teenagers as he seeks to understand what is uniquely theirs and what is assumed from adult culture. His unassuming eye does not try to judge his subject, instead, he focuses on documenting the experiences of boys and young men, searching for an understanding of what draws them to the choices they make.
Christina Seely (New Hampshire) probes issues of climate change in conceptual ways creating works of great beauty. Seely is interested in “… how beauty can suggest the simple and ideal while both subtly reflecting and obscuring an often darker more complicated truth.”
Krista Wortendyke (Chicago) explores ways that photography expresses violence in America. As she says, her work is “an invitation to pay attention”. It is about, “the ease with which we let go of the real through imagery.”
Special Programming
first friday
May 7
5 - 7 PM
Lunch and learn | Virtual Curator talk with Terry evans
May 19
12 - 1 PM
Facebook Live and Zoom
Join guest curator Terry Evans as she discusses "Dissonance and Resonance," the four photographers she chose to work with, and how the exhibition explores building connections, bridging differences, and seeing and being seen.
artist talk with justin schmitz
May 20
6 PM
In-person at Salina Art Center or watch on Zoom and Facebook Live
Photography can be a powerful tool for documenting and telling stories. Justin Schmitz (Chicago) photographs moments in the lives of Midwest American teenagers as he seeks to understand what is uniquely theirs and what is assumed from adult culture. His unassuming eye does not try to judge his subject, instead, he focuses on documenting the experiences of boys and young men, searching for an understanding of what draws them to the choices they make. Join us and learn more about Justin, his artistic practice, and about In the Mist now showing at Salina Art Center through July 25.
folded map project, film screening and discussion with tonika johnson
June 10
6 PM
lunch and learn | Salina’s segregated history and the salina map with Marie Johnson
June 16
12 - 1 PM
artist talk with krista wortendyke
July 8
6 PM
Lunch and Learn | artist talk with Christina Seely
July 21
12 - 1 PM
closing reception with special guest terry evans
July 23
5-7 PM
Join us at the Salina Art Center for the closing reception of Dissonance and Resonance: Four Photographers. With special guest, Terry Evans, guest curator of Dissonance and Resonance.
Terry Evans will give remarks at 6 pm.
Justin Schmitz | Apparition | 2019 | Archival Inkjet Print | 21” x 14”
Christina Seely | Quantitare - Glacies (Exponential Ice, Gully Breen / Svalbard Territory) | 2019 | x11 Archival Inkjet Prints | 46.5” x 37.4”
About the Curator
TERRY EVANS
Terry@terryevansphotography.com
The prairie ecosystem has been a guide for Terry Evans since 1978. She photographs the prairies and plains of North America and the urban prairie of Chicago. Combining both aerial and ground photography, she delves into the intricate and complex relationships between land and people, especially where local people’s landscape is threatened by corporate industrialization. She has recently been photographing a particular Bur Oak tree on the Wooded Island in Jackson Park and protected prairies in the Midwest.
Evans has exhibited widely including one-person shows at Art Institute of Chicago, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, The Field Museum of Natural History, and Amon Carter Museum of Art. Her work is in museum collections including Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Museum of Art and many more. Terry Evans has five books including Heartland: The Photographs of Terry Evans and Prairie Stories. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of an Anonymous is a Woman award.
Dissonance and Resonance is generously funded through the Salina Art Center Endowment Foundation, Greater Salina Community Foundation YW Legacy Fund, Sid & Susy Reitz, McCune Foundation, Middlekauff Foundation, and the Stiefel Foundation.