Alternatives 2025 International Photo Biennial: Image as Record
My artist book, Dumber and Dumb (Edition of 30 + 6 APs), has been selected by juror Willie Osterman for Alternatives 2025: Image as Record, the 15th International Photo Biennial hosted by Ohio University’s MFA Photography and Integrated Media program. The exhibition runs March 3–23, 2025, at Majestic Galleries in Nelsonville, Ohio.
This marks the first public exhibition of Dumber and Dumb since its debut in December 2024. The project—a darkly humorous interrogation of AI’s collision with analog photography—has also recently found permanent homes in two major institutions: the Walker Art Center’s Rosemary Furtak Artists’ Book Collection and the Hirsch Library at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Founded in 1978, the Alternatives exhibition series has long been a benchmark for redefining photography’s conceptual frontiers. I’m thrilled to join this lineage of artists questioning how images function as records—of memory, absurdity, and the unstable ground between human and machine authorship.
Juror Willie Osterman, Professor Emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, described this year’s submissions as “expanding the possibilities of the photographic medium.” Dumber and Dumb embodies this ethos, using generative tools to rework vernacular photography into a surreal meditation on labor and obsolescence.
Exhibition Details
Alternatives 2025: Image as Record
March 3–23, 2025
Majestic Galleries, 20 Public Square, Nelsonville, OH 45764
Dumber and Dumb is available for acquisition through my studio. For inquiries, contact me >>
Culture & Agriculture Exhibition (3rd Place)
Since 1985, the Culture & Agriculture Exhibition has hosted a juried exhibition of work drawing inspiration rural landscapes, farm life, and work that address issues related to agriculture. Juror James Machtan selected two photographs from my series The Last Fair were accepted: Live Action Role Players, Blue Earth County Fair, Minnesota, 2022 and Santa on Vacation, Benton County Fair, Minnesota, 2022 for exhibition at Gallery Q Artists Cooperative, Stevens Point, WI running March 1- April 22, 2025.
I received 3rd Place for Santa on Vacation, Benton County Fair, Minnesota, 2022.
Santa on Vacation, Benton County Fair, Minnesota, 2022 in Culture & Agriculture Exhibition, Juror: James Machtan, Gallery Q Artists Cooperative, Stevens Point, WI.
Live Action Role Players, Blue Earth County Fair, Minnesota, 2022
Joy and the Everyday {juried exhibition}
One of my photographs will be exhibited in a group exhibition juried by Jean Dykstra at Maloof Gallery (Atlanta, GA). The title of the exhibition, Joy and the Everyday, ties with a theme I explore in a new series—The Last Fair—on exhibit at the Maloof Gallery, June 26 - July 31, 2023.
Tintype in NYC group show
This 8x10 tintype of my kids headed off to the NYC show “Breaking More Boundaries” at Culture Lab LIC inspired by the work of Mariette Pathy Allen, curated by Orestes Gonzalez and Jesse Egner. It’s an honor to exhibit along with friends Jess Dugan and Jess Frieden and support the work of trans and gender variant communities. On view June 1 - July 30, opening reception June 3, 6-9 PM, closing toast July 30, 7:30 PM.
One of the perks of working with collodion is the joy of no digital workflow after the original object is created. Just ship and be done. I made this cherry wood stand to support the tintype, exhibited as an original object.
Family Portrait, Bad Medicine Lake, Minnesota, 2022, 8 x 10 inch tintype with cherry wood display
Exhibition in Berlin
Three prints from The Unchosen Ones project are exhibited in Berlin, Germany as part of “Portraits Without Borders” group show, Fotogalerie Friedrichshain through Feb 4, 2022. The show brings together 29 artists from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, and North America, selected from 260 applications last fall.
Fotogalerie Friedrichshain doesn’t follow the “pay to play” notion, prevalent in the US photo exhibition scene. They’ve stood the test of time, as they were the first art gallery in former East Germany to focus only on photography. Exhibition opportunities like this are a wonderful opportunity to connect with other artists and see work in a similar vein. Thank you to Claire Ducresson-Boët for the installation photographs.
These pastoral studies feature Carlana, Eric, and Hannah from The Unchosen Ones (pictured left to right).
"Ones To Watch 2021" {Atlanta Celebrates Photography Festival}
Up on the auction block: Kenzi and Hootie, Anoka County, Minnesota, 2020, Edition 1 of 3, archival pigment print mounted on dibond, 43 x 53 inches.
Thank you to Mary Stanley for selecting my work for the 2021 Ones to Watch group exhibition held at the MINT Gallery in Atlanta, GA. The theme: What We Know.
The opening reception at MINT Gallery is Friday, October 1 from 6:00- 10:00 PM
ACP Auction Benefit Exhibition
I have offered a print for the annual Atlanta Celebrates Photography (ACP) Auction with a special exhibition at HA Modern Showroom at the Atlanta Decorative Art Center held October 6th - 20th. Join small gatherings of photography collectors, interior designers, friends of ACP. Stay tuned for details.
110th Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition
I’m honored to have my work awarded an Honorable Mention by Carla Rodriguez, juror of the 110th Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition in St. Paul, MN. The show runs through Sept 6. I hope to make it to the fair this weekend to see all the art in the show, the largest juried art exhibition in the state. Scroll to the end to see the winning photograph.
I want to share with you the back story not only of the exhibited photograph, but the project as a whole, and the specific sheep featured in the photograph, Tantor. The story features a poetic ending. First, the backstory.
Josilin and Tantor, 4-H Lamb Lead Show, Minnesota State Fair, 2015.
The Unchosen Ones began with a visit to a quintessentially American event, the state fair. I was in Minnesota, where I live, which still has a strong community of small family farms. My longstanding interest in animals and their connection to humans drew me to the 2015 Minnesota State Fair. For my previous project, Divine Animals: The Bovidae, I photographed goats and sheep in lush landscapes throughout Western Europe. I knew I wanted to continue photographing domesticated animals, but my ideas about a new series were still inchoate. As I was canvassing the fair looking for inspiration, I took in all the carefully tended-to animals and their owners, often young children. After the 4-H Lamb Lead show, I met the fourth-place finishers, Josilin, and her sheep, Tantor. I could see Josilin was disappointed, yet she held her head high. Her determination inspired me, and I made a portrait of them. Photographing the pair spurred me to think about my own childhood and its run-of-the- mill disappointments. I had a supportive family and a fulfilling childhood, yet I still vividly remember being picked last for the basketball team and not earning a ribbon at the local science fair, even though I had tried my best. As I grew older, I knew well the feeling of not being chosen—for a job, or for love. But not being chosen for something can have a valuable upside: it can create empathy. Empathy connects people and forges bonds. Later that year, I included the portrait in a Minnesota State Arts Board grant application, and that act would shape my artistic journey.
I began to look for a certain typology: exemplary youth and animals from a small but geographically diverse area in Minnesota. I chose goats and sheep because they were competition animals that also fit within the constraints of the six-foot-wide backdrop I was using. The formality of the backdrop elevated the subjects and also allowed a story to emerge between the animal and the child. My strobe lights failed to flash during my initial session, so I used the diffuse, ambient light of the overcast skies. This serendipitous accident produced a soft tonality I loved: the light fell onto my dignified subject, rendering shadows as though from a painter’s brush. I was drawn to this aesthetic.
Josilin and Escapé, Benton County Fair, Minnesota, 2016 (left) and Josilin and Tantor, Benton County, Minnesota, 2021 (right).
In 2016, I made 65 portraits of youth contestants at Minnesota county fairs. Each participant—some as young as four years old— spent a year raising an animal, which they entered into a 4-H livestock competition. None of the youth I photographed succeeded in winning an award, despite the obvious care they have given to their animal.
Four years later, in 2020, I returned to photograph the young subjects, asking them what they carried forward from their previous experience. Some of them have continued to pursue animal husbandry while others developed other interests. We imagine some of these kids will choose to continue running their family farms, an unpredictable and demanding way to make a living.
As I created the second group of photographs, I asked them what were their thoughts, their dreams, and their goals for the future? How do they fit in the future of agricultural America?
Place matters to me, especially since these portraits were not taken in a studio. Using a wide-angle lens, I stepped back to view the pastoral environment, with farm machinery and architecture and the occasional barn kitty or chicken cameo.
In January 2021, while completing the book project (forthcoming MW Editions, November 2021), I felt the urge to photograph. I called up Josilin and checked in on how Tantor was doing. She was aging with grace, I learned. I also was told female sheep with “masculine” names, like Tantor, perform better in livestock competitions.
Honorable Mention, 110th Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition, Juror Carla Rodriguez:
Josilin, Pastoral Study, 2021, by R. J. Kern, from the upcoming monograph, The Unchosen Ones: Portraits of an American Pastoral (MW Editions, 2021). Archival pigment print mounted on dibond, 37 x 50 inches, Edition 1 of 3 + AP, 2021, $3600 framed.
Although there is abundant evidence that this way of life is disappearing as kids leave the farm, the crisis of climate change and a concern for both sustainability and stewardship of the land point to a path for survival for these agricultural practices and traditions. I hope county fairs will still be around in a hundred years.
Tantor passed away two weeks after our portrait session.
Tantor, Benton County, Minnesota, 2021 (unpublished)
Rourke Art Museum 62nd Invitational Exhibition
If I was a champion sheep, you’d call me “Salty Frog.” I’d have an earring with my name badge, too. Only fitting, “Salty Frog” will be exhibited at the Rourke Art Museum as part of the 62nd Invitational Exhibition, running 18 June - 5 September 2021. Theme: On the Autobiographical Impulse. This is the fifth year I’ve been apart of the show. I always look forward to re-connecting with the community where I had my coffee shop show in 2014 which helped launch my career as a fine-art photographer.
Supreme Champion Ewe (Salty Frog) 2018 Minnesota State Fair. This salt over pigment print was the exhibition print during my solo Burnet Fine Art exhibition in 2019. Ed 1 of 5, 20 x 24 inches. $3000
Time Capsule
Juror Shamim M. Momin, Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Henry Art Gallery, selected my work for inclusion in an exhibition, Time Capsule, at the Photographic Center Northwest (PCNW) Gallery on view June 24 – August 12, 2021. This exhibition will represent a photographic time capsule of an extraordinary time in history.
“Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.” -Sally Mann
Juried for exhibition: Carlana and Donkey, Pastoral Study, Minnesota, 2020 from the series The Unchosen Ones. Archival pigment print, 20 x 24 inches, Edition 1 of 10 + 2 AP, 2021.
PCNW's 24th Annual Juried Exhibition, TIME CAPSULE, June 24 - August 12, 2021. Installation photo by Erin Spencer.
Open Call Winner | Helsinki Photo Festival
My work was selected by an international panel of jurors to be exhibited at the Helsinki Photo Festival 2021, July 7 - September 30, 2021. The theme “fearless” will be a thread through the 50 winners selected.
Can being fearless improve your life or will it ruin it? What does it take to lose your fear? Can we live without fear or will it make us numb? These questions were considered in my approach of re-photographing The Unchosen Ones in 2020.
Special thank you to the Judging panel: Alexa Becker, Andy Adams, Curt Richter, Emanuela Mirabelli, Karoliina Korpilahti, Marianne Ager, Moritz Neumüller, Naoya Yoshikawa, Federico Estol, Rafael Rybczynski, Stefan Bremer, Stig Marlon Weston.
#helphoto21
LEFT: Emma and Ethan with sheep, Blue Earth County Fair, Minnesota, 2016, RIGHT: Emma and Ethan, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, 2020, 20 x 24 inches, archival pigment print, edition of 10 + 2 AP, by R. J. Kern.