SMU’s Pollock Gallery to exhibit Taos photos Sept. 3 – Oct. 12

The Pollock Gallery of the Division of Art at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts will present “Consuming (Interests): Photographs from Taos, New Mexico by Debora Hunter” from September 3 through October 12, 2013.

Hunter, an associate professor of photography at SMU Meadows, has photographed the cultural landscape of Taos, New Mexico, for the past 10 years.

Through careful recording of domestic and commercial architecture within the majestic sweep of sky and land, she reframes the question of man versus nature. Hunter believes this inquiry is increasingly urgent as consumer culture bumps hard against diminishing natural resources. Edited from her large archive of photographs, the exhibit includes images of “abandoned gas stations, drought-blighted gardens, self-storage rental units, ramshackle manufactured modular homes, landfilled garbage dumps, foreclosed faux adobe luxury houses and litter-strewn mesas.”

Hunter says the exhibit examines Americans’ “drive to consume amid an ever less bountiful landscape.”

A reception with the artist will be held Friday, September 6 from 5-8 p.m., and gallery talks will be presented at noon Wednesday, September 18, and at 1 p.m. Saturday, September 21.

The Pollock Gallery is located on the first floor of the Hughes-Trigg Student Center, 3140 Dyer St. on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and 1-5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. For more information, call 214-768-4439 or visit the gallery online.

About the artist:

Debora Hunter was born in Chicago in 1950 and grew up in Oak Park, Illinois. She received a B.A. in English literature from Northwestern University and an M.F.A. in photography from Rhode Island School of Design, where she worked with Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind and the visiting faculty of Minor White and Lisette Model.  She has been on the faculty at SMU Meadows School of the Arts since 1976.

Her photographic work includes documentary projects made in Newfoundland and Labrador, “Waiting: Portraits of the Terminally Ill,” “Raw Material: Portraits of Babies” and “Family Landscapes.” In 2002 she completed a permanent public installation of eight art panels for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s light rail station at Skillman and LBJ Freeway.

She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., and participated in group exhibitions at museums throughout the country, including the Hirshhorn Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth, Dallas Museum of Art and many others. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Gallery, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Dallas Museum of Art and other notable museums.

She is represented by James Kelly Contemporary Art Gallery in Santa Fe.

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