This limited-run poster of our latest issue cover features “My butterfly year” by Dianna Settles, a Vietnamese-American artist from Atlanta. Her paintings trace “relationships to nature, autonomy, self-sufficiency, protest, work, and the solitude necessary for being amongst others.” Supplies are limited so grab this collector’s item today!

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All photos © Michaela O’Brien

Cowboy Haven

Artist: Michaela O’Brien

Project: Love Valley

Description: Michaela O’Brien’s Love Valley captures life in a North Carolina township founded as a “cowboy haven” in 1954. At .2 square miles, with a population hovering around 100, Love Valley “brings to mind a John Wayne movie.” Allowing only foot and horse traffic, it “also conjures an eerie ghostliness at quieter times of day.” O’Brien’s photographs present a “fragmented narrative of frontier freedom” in which “the complete story is eschewed for the remains: a constellation of biblical and patriotic gestures, and what lies at the heart of it all, the desire to start over.”

 


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..





Michaela O'Brien

Michaela O’Brien is a documentary artist, photographer, and filmmaker currently based in Durham, NC. She holds an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. Her work includes independent documentaries for broadcast, award-winning audiovisual installations, client-based archival research, and interactive videos for a variety of acclaimed museums. Her photographic and moving image works have been featured in galleries and film festivals worldwide. She is currently teaching in the department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University.