Tamara Reynolds “weave[s] into [her] compelling images a sense of urgency, so that what might have begun as a private inquiry could assume broader significance in our current moment. This is an exceedingly difficult thing to do, and I am in awe whenever I encounter a body of work that seems to open up new paths towards understanding the world around us." — Sarah Hermanson Meister, Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art.
Tamara Reynolds is a documentary photographer whose unflinching eye considers what it means to be human in today’s society. In particular, her work focuses on the lives of those who are usually unseen.
Reynolds’ photobook The Drake will be published by Dewi Lewis in March 2020. The work — portraits, still lifes and streetscapes that document the lives of people existing just above survival on one square block around a motel in Nashville, Tennessee — has received numerous honors, including the prestigious Santa Fe Center 2018 Project Launch Grant and the 2019 Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant, and has exhibited widely. Reynolds’ acclaimed earlier body of work, Southern Route, which explores issues of identity, conflict and the disappearing culture of the South, is included in Southbound, the ongoing traveling exhibition and book curated by Mark Sloan and Mark Long of Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, with support from the NEA and the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. In addition to numerous exhibitions around the country, Reynolds’ photographs have been featured on the New York Times Lens Blog, PBS News Hour, Lenscratch, Strange Fire Collective, Photo-Emphasis, Oxford American and FotoRoom, among others. Her images have also been published in Ain’t Bad, American Photography 29, 30 and 33, Oxford American Magazine: Eyes on the South, Communication Arts and All About Photos and are in the collections of The Do Good Fund and Cassilhaus.
Tamara Reynolds was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and has lived there all her life. In 2017, she received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Hartford, where she graduated with honors. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Middle Tennessee State University. Most recently, Reynolds has been a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Cassilhaus Gallery and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art.
instagram: @tamarareynoldsphotography
