Hydrangea by Justine Kurland

Justine Kurland holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in photography from Yale University. She is best known for photographing subjects in American wilderness landscapes. Influences to her strongly narrative work include nineteenth-century English picturesque landscapes and the utopian ideal as well as genre paintings, photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron and Mathew Brady, and illustrations from fairy tales. Kurland has used staged tableaux to explore the social landscape of girlhood, life on communes and in the wilderness, and traveling on the road with her son, Casper. Here, she photographs Casper in a moment of rest, framed by colorful hydrangeas.

Kurland’s work is in many permanent collections including the Corcoran Gallery (Washington, D.C.), the Guggenheim Museum (New York City), the International Center of Photography (New York City), Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts, and the Whitney Museum (New York City). Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York represents her. Kurland participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in 2016.