Press "Enter" to skip to content

The 17th annual Joyce Elaine Grant Exhibition showcases photographers from across the nation

A familiar February chill blanketed the outside of Texas Woman’s University’s Fine Arts building. Inside, you’re immediately greeted with tables full of cookies, sandwiches, and lemon bars lined the halls. Children and teens alike feasted and watched as a community of photographers showcased their most prized works in honor of Professor Susan Kae Grant’s mother, Joyce Elaine Grant.

Joyce was passionate about photography and desperately wanted to provide college students all around the country, regardless of age, gender and race, with scholarships to fund their dreams. This sparked TWU alumni Christine Shank and a small group of graduate students to create an exhibition and endowment in honor of Joyce. The endowment provides scholarships for young photographers and future graduate students in the Department of Visual Arts.

This year, a total of 109 participants and 600 photo entries came flooding in from across 22 states. Eleven of the accepted artists came from Texas, including three from Denton. The award winners include:

Anna Grevenitis, Brooklyn, NY, (Solo Show Award)

John-David Richardson, Bellevue, KY, (Red River Paper Award 1)

Sara Macel, Brooklyn, NY, (Red River Paper Award 2)

Andy Mattern, Stillwater, OK, (Red River Paper Award 3)

Lily Brooks, Baton Rouge, LA, (Competitive Camera Award)

Kristen Emack, Cambridge, MA, (Freestyle Photo Award)

These photos were judged by Lisa Sutcliffe, the Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media at the Milwaukee Museum of Arts. Sutcliffe holds an MA in the History of Art from Boston University, where she specialized in the History of Photography. She was also the Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for several years coordinating exhibitions.

Juniors Elizabeth Russo and Amelia Gillander explore the photography exhibition during the 17th Annual Joyce Elaine Grant Exhibition at The Texas Woman’s University Visual Arts Building in Denton on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. Photo by Sarah Pham.

“They sent me a PowerPoint of all the pictures and I just hit print without seeing how many pages it would be,” Sutcliffe said. “I printed out all 600 of them since that’s how I like to work. I spread them all out on my dining room table and I started to just look over them and sort of let them wash over me to see what they were trying to communicate.”

“For me, photography isn’t just about taking pictures. It’s really about seeing,” Sutcliffe said. “The fact that photographers all see in a different way than the rest of us means they’re always trying to show us something.”

Sutcliffe goes on to express the importance of a relationship between a photographer and photograph. 

“I think often times when we were making pictures were thinking about what a picture is supposed to look like and trying to take pictures that have already been made before,” Sutcliffe said. “It can be really difficult to forget about that and start taking pictures that actually say what you’re thinking and seeing.”

“Photography is very undermined in the art community and is not as respected, which I’ve never thought of that way,” Taylor Hill-Carroll, freshman studio art major and frequent exhibition-goer, said. “Photography is a difficult craft. You have to catch things in the moment – they can’t always be staged and the photographs you take need to have a certain meaning.”

Hilley-Carroll then shared her reasons as to the importance of exhibitions.  

“The art building always has amazing exhibits. You get to see all these different types of artists that you wouldn’t normally see,” Hilley-Carroll said. “It’s such a good opportunity to actually go to exhibits because if you see an artist that really catches your eye, you can make those connections in person.” 

The Joyce Elaine Grant Exhibition will continue to run until Apr. 13 in the Fine Arts Building. 

Catty Tomaszweski can be reached via email at ctomaszewski@twu.edu.

Featured Image: Missy Finger observes a photo by Mark Geil during the 17th Annual Joyce Elaine Grant Exhibition at The Texas Woman’s University Visual Arts Building in Denton on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. Photo by Sarah Pham.

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *