Koch Hall hosts a handful of visiting artists each semester, exhibiting their work in the Anne Miller Gallery, just inside the front doors of the building. The art department kicks off the spring welcoming Dayton photographer Julie Renee Jones.
Jones got her start in the art world by modeling for her father, an amateur photographer, as a child. In college, she tried an array of mediums before taking up the camera herself. The work in Koch Hall features portrait photographs from her series “Umbra,” a body of work that explores the inner workings of light, shadow and memory through re-creation and imaginary photography. Her pieces explore an array of “borderlands” as she calls them – juxtapositions of light and shadow, innocence and experience, and memory and imagination.
Jones’ models consist of her family members, and to Jones, the photographs she takes are all about the play between her relationship with each model captured in her lens.
When asked about idealism and intention in photography, Jones responded: “I have an intention or idea of a photograph. That photograph rarely ever gets made. . . It’s a play of the two [relationships].”
Experimenting with the relationships of photographer and subject, light and shadow, and memory and imagination, Jones’ photographs question what reality is, was and how we create and capture memories.
Jones’ work is on display in the Anne Miller Gallery (open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. during the week) in Koch Hall. Her photographs will be on display through Feb. 12.
