Drawing heavily from the archival resources at the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at UGA, Haunts and Related Incidents is a modern interpretation of early 20th century Georgia folklore and mythology. Simultaneously seductive and off-putting, Dodd MFA student Alec Kaus' series of works is an examination of the tensions between the familiar and the...
Drawing heavily from the archival resources at the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library at UGA, Haunts and Related Incidents is a modern interpretation of early 20th century Georgia folklore and mythology. Simultaneously seductive and off-putting, Dodd MFA student Alec Kaus’ series of works is an examination of the tensions between the familiar and the unfamiliar; the objective and the subjective; the natural and the unnatural; the material and the ethereal. Presented as a nebulous yet self-contained constellation, this work evokes mood rather than narrative, raising more questions than answers. What are the boundaries of the archive’s presumed objectivity? What is the role of folklore in early 20th century Georgia, and how has it changed? How much latitude does an artist have in weaving together truth and fiction before sowing distrust in the viewer? The exhibition is curated by Dodd undergraduate in Art History, Lacy Hamilton.
Alec Kaus is an artist and photographer based in Athens, Georgia. He is an MFA candidate at the University of Georgia where he is a Whitehead Graduate Art Fellow, and holds a BA in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Alec’s work moves between the fields of art history, art criticism, curation, and photography, and his research interests include the role history, archives, and folklore play in constructing narratives about our collective past, present, and future. He has exhibited his photographs throughout the United States, and was recently awarded the 2018 Society for Photographic Education Student Award for Innovations in Imaging. His work is part of public and private collections, including the Center for Photography at Woodstock and Chroma at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Lacy Hamilton is a curator and an undergraduate Art History student in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia. Her areas of special interest include classical art and architecture, Renaissance art, and fine art photography. She is currently a curatorial intern at the Georgia Museum of Art under Dr. Asen Kirin, Parker Curator of Russian Art at the Georgia Museum of Art and professor of Art History at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. After graduating, she plans on pursuing a career in curation at an art museum.
