A resident of Nashville whose work has been exhibited and collected internationally, Jack Spencer alters the surfaces of his photographs with techniques suggestive of painting--rich patinas and luminous colors, softly-focused or veiled forms, and traces of the artist's hand: imperfections, marks, and painterly textures. The exhibition catalog consists of an essay by Susan Edwards and 70 full-page color plates selected from such series as -Native Soil, - -Apariciones, - -This Land, - and -Portraits and Gestures- to exemplify the relationship between these compelling surfaces and Spencer's...

Although known primarily as a country music star, Marty Stuart has been taking photographs of the people and places surrounding him since he first went on tour with bluegrass performer Lester Flatt at age twelve. His inspirations to do this include his own mother, Hilda Stuart, whom he watched document their family's everyday life in Mississippi, bassist Milt Hinton's photographs of fellow jazz artists, and Edward Curtis's well-known images of Native Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. Stuart's work ranges from intimate and often candid behind-the-scenes depictions of legendary...

People often feel the presence of someone when no one is there. This may be a way of embodying the fear of the unknown, the ghost under the bed. It may be a near-palpable memory of an absent person, triggered by an article of clothing, a photograph, a scent, an old recording. And it can at rare times be a feeling of immanence, of being close to spirit or divinity. Regardless of the source, the sense of presence-in-absence reinforces a need--which seems hard-wired into the psyche--to experience a human essence outside the body.

The exhibition and its accompanying catalog include artworks...