Eyes on the South

Pompeian Quality

By  |  May 9, 2016
Tavern, Pensacola, FL. All photographs by M. Laine Wyatt Tavern, Pensacola, FL. All photographs by M. Laine Wyatt

Artist: M. Laine Wyatt

Project: Interiors

Description: M. Laine Wyatt’s project Interiors is about public spaces and their “sort of theatre of the ordinary.” Wyatt seeks a “Pompeian quality” by photographing these places in the absence of human subjects. “The ‘recent’ presence (of persons) points to an absence which encourages us to scrutinize and assign new and perhaps more poignant significance to these ‘remnants’,” she writes. “We find clues about our own lives as well as clues to the identity of our region.”

View the embedded image gallery online at:
https://main.oxfordamerican.org/item/844-pompeian-quality#sigProId5a17c78b0a

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, email Jeff at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Laine Wyatt is an Associate Professor with the University of Central Florida, where she has taught art/photography since 2000. She took an undergraduate degree in studio art/photography from the University of Florida, did postgraduate work at San Francisco State University, and received her MFA in studio art/photography from Florida State University. From the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs, Wyatt was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in 1997-98, an Artist Enhancement Grant in 2006, 2007, and 2008, and she was a Merit Artist in 2011. Wyatt has exhibited her work in more than 130 exhibitions across the country and abroad, and she has won a number of awards for individual works.

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