Art alumna awarded 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship

Lamar Dodd School of Art alumna Kristine Potter, who received a BFA in Photography and an A.B. in Art History (2003), has been awarded a 2018 Guggenheim memorial Foundation Fellowship:

The Foundation offers Fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed. The Foundation receives approximately 3,000 applications each year. Although no one who applies is guaranteed success in the competition, there is no prescreening: all applications are reviewed. Approximately 175 Fellowships are awarded each year.

Potter's resume is resplendent with awards, honors and exhibitions:

Potter's work generally focuses on the narrative of "America" and the ways in which a new frame of seeing can complicate those stories we've told ourselves about who we are. Her newest body of work, and that which she will continue to pursue with the Guggenheim Fellowship, is called Dark Waters. This work takes root in and around bodies of water with violent or ominous names. Examples include: Murder Creek, Deadman's Branch, and Bloody River, though there are many more. The landscape of the southeast is thick with such waters, their names seeming to reflect something fundamental to how this land was settled. Potter is photographing these waters and the people and landscapes that surround them. She is making visual what she sees to be a feedback loop between nature and myth, the way in which a threatening landscape primes a culture for violence, and how a violent culture relishes projecting threat onto a landscape. 

Her work has shown nationally and internationally including at such galleries and institutions as Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York City, Light Work in Syracuse, NY, the Georgia Museum of Art, and the Neuberger Museum of Art. Her work belongs in numerous public and private collections, including that of the Georgia Museum of Art, Light Work, and 601 Artspace in New York City. Potter was selected as Artist in Residence at Light Work in 2014, and her work has been recognized with nominations to the MACK First Book Award, as well as the Shortlist to the 2016 Kassel Book Prize.

One of the most prestigious and generous arts awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship is a fantastic accelerant to careers in creativity and we look forward to learning how Potter uses the Fellowship to generate interesting new work. Congratulations and best of luck.

Image: Kristine Potter, Hell For Certain, 2016