Amanda Russhell Wallace (2020): Mourning Breaks, 2014-2015

Extent:

.1 Linear Feet (5 photographic prints)

Scope and content:

Collection comprises five 8 1/2 x 11 inch color inkjet prints of photographs taken by Amanda Russhell Wallace from 2014-2015. Her project, "Mourning Breaks," is a portrait of her family in the wake of her maternal grandmother and her sister's unexpected deaths and over time. Settings in the photographs include funerals, a birthday party, and a cemetery clean-up. The essay explores, as Wallace writes, "emergences and interludes that speak to the essence of being human: rhythmic dances, fast or slow, tiding between living and dying." This work was awarded the 2020 Lange-Taylor Prize by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

Biographical / historical:

Amanda Russhell Wallace received a B.A. from Rice University and an M.FA. from the School of Visual Arts. A lens-based multimedia artist, her work ranges from documentary family photography to experiments with time-based media and primarily locates itself in the archive (records, cemeteries, oral histories, etc.) as a site for "family reunion." Her frequent practice of historical collaging uses remnants of speech, texts, and imagery to present and interrogate various loci of dissociation and dis-remembering within the formation and performance of selves across time.

Wallace's work has been shown nationally and internationally at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, El Museu Valencià de la Illustració i la Modernitat (MuVIM), Newark Museum, Flux Factory, and MASS MoCA. She recently became Assistant Professor of Art at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. She received the 2020 Lange-Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

Material specific details:

The pigment inkjet prints were created by Amanda Russhell Wallace in 2023 using Hahnemuehle Ultra Smooth Matte paper.

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