Outside, Briefly
Online Viewing Room Featuring:
Carla Anderson, Brian Day and S. Kay Young
We all need a little more time outside.
Outside, Briefly is a collection of images that reflect encounters with the natural world. Grass, trees, sky, and weather are shared elements that connect us through lived experience.
The artists in this group approach nature as something woven into daily life, not separate from it.
As you look through the works, consider what it means to step outside and how those moments stay with you once you return indoors.
S. KAY YOUNG
Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle paper
43 × 30 inches
Framed
CARLA ANDERSON
Carla Anderson was born in Philadelphia and moved to Detroit while still a child. She grew up in a left wing family who had interests in the arts. As a child she slunk around with a Brownie camera pretending to be a wildlife photographer while all the while attempting to photograph squirrels. In her teens and as a young adult Carla studied theatre. It wasn’t until her late 20’s that she made a commitment to photography.
Starting as a street photographer Carla soon began to photograph vernacular architecture. In the mid 1980s she began her first long term project. Traveling the rural South Carla photographed vernacular architecture, signage, roadside memorials, and outsider art. This project lasted fifteen years at which time she moved into the landscape. This current body of work began to take form in 2006 and has wound through various stages and growth since that time. Much of the influence for this work comes from painting.
In 2020, in conjunction with writer Bill Harris, she published Sight—Sound: 10 Haiku by Bill Harris after Carla Anderson Photographs. This handmade book, printed in letterpress with photographs tipped onto the pages, is the first of its kind to come out of Detroit.
Brian Day
Brian Day (b. 1977) is a third generation Detroit native. He discovered photography through the suggestion of a colleague and began exploring documentary and fine art projects around the city using film and digital cameras. Day cites as early influences the work of Ansel Adams, Gordon Parks, Michael Kenna, Alexander Rodchenko, and Joel Meyerowitz, to name a few.
His work has been exhibited both locally and internationally, and published in Scientific American, Hour Detroit, Esquire, Smithsonian, CNN, The Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, and Metro Times, among others.
He was awarded a Documenting Detroit Fellowship in 2016, and was a recipient of the Michigan Chronicle’s Men of Excellence award in 2017, which recognizes creative and influential personalities making a positive impact on the city of Detroit. His recent series Detroit From Above has been much acclaimed and won First Place in Architecture at the International Photography Awards in 2018. In 2020, Day was commissioned by Apple to photograph a feature entitled, Hometown: Detroit. In early 2021, Day’s work was added to the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Day also contributes to the community through his work as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.
S. KAY YOUNG
S. Kay Young (b. 1952) is a Detroit based artist, advocate, instructor, with a 44 year photographic career. A descendant of the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation, her work is in numerous private and corporate collections, including The Detroit Institute of Arts, The University of Michigan and Cobo Center (The Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority) in Detroit.
S. Kay Young’s work is inspired by her love of, respect for and relationship with nature. Kay has a deep, personal reverence for trees. All her photographic series are initiated through messages she receives in dreams that come through her ancestors. Young has been given these detailed dreams since early childhood.
In 2014 Young and her Special Needs students were featured in and won an Emmy for PBS’s Detroit Performs series. In April 2019 Kay’s work was included in the curated exhibition Transformation at The Detroit Artist Market; the 106 ft X 155 ft installation was comprised of 98 self-portrait DNA images addressing identity and our DNA relationship to trees. The photographic installation reflected the quilts passed down by her mother and grandmother.
Young’s work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions throughout her career. In addition, she has lectured at The Smithsonian’s National Museum for the American Indian in New York addressing the colonization of Native people in partnership with the American Indian Community House in New York City. She has curated and judged numerous art exhibitions in Detroit and was one of the principal curators of the 2021 exhibition/event "Mighty Real, Queer Detroit" spanning six Detroit galleries, including The Detroit Institute of Arts.
S. KAY YOUNG
Archival pigment print
Edition of 8
Image Size: 40 × 60 inches
Sheet Size: 44 × 64 inches
Unframed