Jennifer Ray

In Range

Education wing | November 18 - january 3, 2021

ARTIST STATEMENT

“At its surface, my ongoing project In Range is a documentation of objects I find at open shooting ranges – improvised targets that have been abandoned, leaving traces of their previous owners. I manipulate these found objects, treating them as sculptural material and photographing them on-site as if I were in the studio. The choice of targets reveals a pleasure in destruction that I find simultaneously understandable and disturbing. Most disquieting are the objects that were once alive, or that seem to serve as proxy for flesh – the wound in the globe of a cantaloupe, a mangled Polaroid, the leftovers of a game carcass.

With my arrangements, I draw on the real as well as the implied; I work to connect the present fact to the histories of violence in the United States. Though there are clues to their identities, I avoid photographing the shooters themselves. I want to look beyond simple matters of demographics toward the more fundamental reasons for our nation’s obsession. I’m interested in what unresolved strains of fear, anger, inequality, and hatred undergird our obsession with guns. I hope to imbue the viewing experience with a similar tension as is inherent in the activity itself, where aesthetic pleasure is tempered by implicit violence.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jennifer Ray is a Wichita-based artist and educator. She received her MFA in Photography from Columbia College and BA in Studio Art from Oberlin College.