Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Writer/contact: Nora Wendl, 706/542-0069, nwendl@uga.edu

“Your Faith Instructions, Photographs by Ben Reynolds” to be presented by UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art

Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art announces the opening of the one-person exhibition “Your Faith Instructions” by artist and UGA professor Ben Reynolds. A reception will be held Tuesday, Sept. 12, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Broad Street Gallery, marking the start of the gallery’s fall season. The exhibition runs through Oct. 20 and both it and the reception are free and open to the public. The gallery is located at 257 W. Broad Street in Athens.

“Your Faith Instructions” offers the first public viewing of a series of archival pigment prints by the Georgia-based Reynolds, who methodically and objectively documents the life of a family member, Lulu Mae Carpenter, after her passing in 2004 at the age of 72. Reynolds records, collects and reveals Carpenter’s life through a series of carefully composed photographs of the interior of his subject’s home in Waynesboro. Recalling and celebrating a life that touched many generations of a singular family, “Your Faith Instructions” delivers these vivid prints in conjunction with a collection of framed artifacts created by Carpenter herself.

Similar in concept to contemporary artist Alec Soth’s “Sleeping by the Mississippi,” Reynolds’ collection eludes classification as “documentary,” distinguishing itself by steadily focusing on one life, its ephemera, and its quiet power over the viewer.

Reynolds holds a BFA and an MFA with distinction from the University of Georgia.

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