SPIRIT LIFTING AT LYNCH RIVER by Kristine Potter

From the series Dark Waters
2019
Archival pigment print
20 × 25 in
Edition of 4

Kristine Potter continues her engagement with the American landscape as a palimpsest for cultural ideologies.

Potter reflects on the Southern Gothic landscape as evoked in the popular imagination of “murder ballads” from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her seductive, richly detailed black-and-white images channel the setting and characters of these songs, capturing the landscape of the American South, and creating a series of evocative portraits that stand in for the oft-unnamed women at the center of their stories.

In the American murder ballad, which has taken on cult appeal and continue to be rerecorded even to this day, the riverscape is frequently the stage of crimes as described in their lyrics. Places like Murder Creek, Bloody Fork, and Deadman’s Pond are haunted by both the victim and perpetrator of violence in the world Potter conjures, reflecting the casual and popular glamorization of violence against women that remains prevalent in today’s cultural landscape. As Potter notes, “I see a through line of violent exhibitionism from those early murder ballads, to the Wild West shows, to the contemporary landscape of cinema and television. Culturally, we seem to require it.” Dark Waters both evokes and exorcises the sense of threat and foreboding that women often grapple with as they move through the world. Author Rebecca Bengal contributes an evocative short story that underscores the sense of anxiety and foreboding that Potter infuses into each of her images; a deliciously compelling, if chilling, combination.

Archival pigment prints use refined pigment particles to create exquisite, high-resolution artwork. This printing method creates museum-quality artwork designed to last; ink and paper are critical elements in an archival pigment print’s life span.