During her residency, Johnson Bowles will explore format, size, sequencing, and display strategies for a new body of work, Eyes Swollen Shut. The series is an autobiographical exploration of trauma via a narrative sequence of diptychs. She will be exploring the nature of autobiographical works (risks, vulnerabilities, pitfalls); the phenomenological underpinnings of image juxtapositions and sequencing; methods of creating visual narratives and story-telling; and the legacies postwar photography relative to the use /relevancy/import of photographic metaphor.

K. Johnson Bowles’ work has been featured in more than seventy solo and group juried exhibitions and in numerous articles and essays throughout the US. She is the winner of National Endowment for the Arts individual and Houston Center for Photography fellowships. Her MFA in photography is from Ohio University.

Support for this project came from Joy of Giving Something and the New York State Council on the Arts Visual Arts program.