Artist: Ryan Steed

Project: Went Out for Cigarettes

Description: The images in Ryan Steed’s Went Out for Cigarettes span four Southern states but are occupied by a common “physical and psychological landscape” shaped by the act of travel itself. Marked by the omnipresence of roadside signs and messages scrawled on windows and walls, Steed’s project is concerned with the witness and discovery inherent in any journey. His photos are suffused with the fraught, ineffable pull to wander out your door in search of cigarettes or coffee, a miracle or a drink, and never return: lost in a landscape that possesses, entices, and torments all at once. Walker Evans wrote: “I can understand why Southerners are haunted by their own landscape and in love with it.” Steed’s photographs are a record of just such a complex devotion.

• Dixie Rothko Dixie Rothko
• Every Other Day is Fine Every Other Day is Fine
• New Colossus New Colossus
• Shipping Out Shipping Out
• And Never Came Back And Never Came Back
• Baptist Liquor Store Baptist Liquor Store
• Continental Biscuits Continental Biscuits
• Old Glory Old Glory
• Yard of Blonde Girls Yard of Blonde Girls
• Cat House Cat House
• Where Everybody Knows Your Name Where Everybody Knows Your Name
• At the Corner of Main At the Corner of Main
• For God & Country For God & Country
• Guantanamo Bayou Guantanamo Bayou
• Mind’s in the Gutter Mind’s in the Gutter
• We’ll Leave the Light On We’ll Leave the Light On
• Man of Means by No Means Man of Means by No Means
• I Sold My Soul in Perry County, Gateway to Fun I Sold My Soul in Perry County, Gateway to Fun
• Panther Burn Panther Burn
• Purple Haze Purple Haze
• There’s a Red House Over Yonder There’s a Red House Over Yonder
• Skyway Skyway
• Riding Off Into the Sunset Riding Off Into the Sunset
• Tangled Up in Blue Tangled Up in Blue
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Eyes on the South is curated by Jeff Rich. The weekly series features selections of current work from Southern artists, or artists whose photography concerns the South. To submit your work to the series, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..