Project statement:

I was exposed abruptly to my father's business failures upon his death. While the economic effects were immediately obvious, the emotional implications of this surprise remained hidden for nine years. Recognizing their increasing influence on my work and family, I returned home in 2010 to photograph the lasting psychological landscape of my father's death and insolvency.

My goal was to retrace his life using photography as a vehicle of resolution. I photographed his family, friends, schools and businesses while researching his character and actions. Within my immediate family, I witnessed intense affliction and perseverance. My subject became emotional states and the photographs narrate my journey between isolation and acceptance. Finally understanding that some questions can never be answered, this series evokes critical moods without definitive explanations.

A Journal of Southern History combines emotive expression, persistence of family and a landscape of loss to reveal inherent dichotomies in my rural North Carolina home.

Bio and contact:

While completing a BA in cultural anthropology, I found photography a powerful ethnographic tool for exploring the human condition. My photographs draw parallels between the lives of individuals and universal shared experiences, correlations that create first-person narrative journeys. Engaging existential concurrence by merging multiple perspectives and narratives into a comprehensive experience, my recent work presents a memoir of movement through the psychological and social landscapes of my father's death. I have received graduate-level scholarships while working and studying with notable photographers Alec Soth, Ryan McGinley and Mike Smith. In 2011 San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, Assistant Curator Erin O'Toole awarded CENTER's Curator's Choice to my project, A Journal of Southern History.

McNair is a San Francisco, CA, based photographer.
To view more of his work, please visit his website: mcnairevans.com
You can also contact him by e-mail: info@mcnairevans.com