UnBound14! Artist Features: XI
RAYMOND THOMPSON JR • JW TOFTNESS • VAUNE TRACHTMAN • MARTIN VENEZKY •
LORI WALSH-VAN WEY • WILL WARASILA • KYLE WORTHY AND LEAH WORTHY • ANNA YEROSHENKO
UNBOUND14!
June 27 – August 9
Join us for a breakdown of our annual juried + invitational photography exhibition. Throughout the exhibition, we’ll share information about our artists and the processes behind their featured pieces.
SUPPORT THE EXHIBITION:
UnBound! is our annual juried photography show which directly supports artists in the exhibition through sales and fundraising efforts. Works in the show are available for purchase (like a normal exhibition), but friends can also give to the UnBound! Fund, which will be used by the gallery to acquire select works for the growing Candela Collection. One day, this collection will be donated to the permanent collection of a notable arts institution. This year, Candela excited to offer an honorarium + 2026 exhibition to 1-2 UnBound14! artists with funds raised over the course of the exhibition.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2ND, 7-11PM:
THE ANNUAL FUNDRAISING GALA.
This year’s theme is A Midsummer Night’s Fever Dream, which you can learn more about here.
RAYMOND THOMPSON JR | AUSTIN, TX
Highwater - Bottomlands - Lincoln City #3, 2025
Archival Pigment Print,
16 x 20 inches, mounted.
Edition # 1 of 6.
$2,000
The Neuse River flows from the capital of North Carolina, serpentining through tobacco and cotton fields to Eastern Carolina swamps before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. Occasionally, the river overflows with rainwater and reclaims the landscape, paying no attention to the man-made borders. This can only lead to tragedy for vulnerable communities abandoned by institutions meant to protect them.
The small town of Kinston, North Carolina suffered a natural disaster that author Jake Bittle says is part of a trend he has coined “the great displacement,” which will spark the next great migration fleeing the impacts of climate change. In Kinston, this natural disaster caused the relocation of 800 families representing 10 percent of the community. The historic community founded by freed slaves and sharecroppers was called Lincoln City and was situated in the bottomlands in the Neuse’s floodplain that sat several feet below sea level.
Discriminatory housing practices forced people to locate near the river, which made it vulnerable to periodic flooding. In what the federal government called “coordinated climate migration,” the community was bought out home by home and finally razed to the ground.
All that is left is a maze of streets and the curbs marking where a driveway used to be.
This photography project examines what remains in the landscape of Lincoln City today. The images are created using the Lumen printing and submerged in water until the emulsion dissolves and/or mold forms on the surface.
Raymond Thompson Jr., an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and visual journalist, is based in Austin, TX. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. His academic journey includes an MFA in Photography from West Virginia University, an MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and a degree in American Studies from the University of Mary Washington.
Raymond explores how race, memory, representation, and place combine to shape the Black environmental imagination of the North American landscape.
He won the 1619 Aftermath Grant (2023) and the 2021 Lenscatch Student Prize(2021). Raymond has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including the Fotofest Biennial - Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2022-23( 2024). His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Raymond is the author of Appalachian Ghost, published in 2024 by the University Press of Kentucky.
Raymond’s professional experience extends to freelance photography, where he has collaborated with renowned organizations such as The New York Times, The Intercept, NBC News, NPR, Politico, ProPublica, The Nature Conservancy, ACLU, WBEZ, Google, Merrell, Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, and the Associated Press.
JW TOFTNESS | SAVANNAH, GA
AMMMMT III: To Redecorate a Dream, XVII, 2025,
Archival Pigment Print,
33.2 x 27.6 inches framed.
Edition 1 of 4 + 2AP.
$2,250
These photos are a portion—a sub-series—of my long-term project, An apology made for the matter of material in metaversal times (or, AMMMMT). AMMMMT draws inspiration from body horror films and media theory, particularly media archaeology. These inspirations both share a focus on materiality in the face of perceived dematerialization via technological advances (computers, cloud computing, phones, tablets, AR, VR). At its core, AMMMMT explores tensions that persist when digital immersion chafes against the material, physical reality of technological progress. The multiple installments of the project engage with the psychological, even ontological, divide we appear to construct between digital space and tangible reality. But our sense of division is illusory: the dynamic is not one-directional.
The images are made in a lighting studio. Toftness utilizes color theory and takes inspiration from visual culture, including art history, when lighting and staging these images. The use of “kraft” paper in many of the images ties back into the same conceptual reasoning beyond the papier mâché sculptures—it is also a reminder of the constructedness of the images themselves. Specific instances of inspiration drawn from visual culture range from Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam to the “Is this a pigeon?” meme; from Baudrillard’s photographs to Charles O’ Rear’s Bliss photograph—the latter is otherwise known as the default wallpaper for the Windows XP operating system, and claimed to be the most viewed photograph in history. The use of color bars throughout my work is meant to signal our attempts at standardization—like how a dictionary attempts to codify our vocabulary, color bars are meant to establish correct image depiction. But such attempts at standardization have their flaws, and visual language is no different.
James Toftness ( b. 1984) focuses his artistic practice on concerns regarding the boundary between nature and technology, and on the slippages amongst perceived, given, and mediated realities. Complementing these core concerns, Toftness incorporates imagery from various nodes of visual culture, including art historical imagery. As a primarily lens-based artist, he is fascinated by how we value images and by the nature of perception. Toftness utilizes both digital and film formats, video, experimental printing processes, and papier-mâché sculpture.
VAUNE TRACHTMAN | BATTLEBORO, VT
Caesura, 2024,
Photogravure with surface roll on washi paper,
25.4 x 20.9 inches framed.
Edition #1 of 8 + 2 AP.
$1,500
In this series, Trachtman is exploring the handwriting of her parents, who both died when she was young. She is dyslexic, and the marks they made in letters and notebooks reminds her of the tension one feels when one recognizes language but struggles to comprehend it. Memory can work the same way— try as we may to reach into the past, we can never grasp it. This is a feeling she thinks we all share when recalling a first love, a first loss, the first sense of ourselves aging, and the first awareness that ultimately, we are the marks we leave behind.
Vaune Trachtman is a photographer and printmaker whose images explore the evanescence of dreams and memory. Using the photopolymer gravure method, she creates works that "seem more like emanations than photographs" (Mark Feeney, Boston Globe), while her attentiveness to the "transitory reach of light" leads to moments of "fleeting, wondrous, sacred habitation" (Collier Brown, Od Review).
Vaune is included in the top 50 of Photolucida's Critical Mass, and she has been a semifinalist in the Print Center's 95th and 97th ANNUAL International Competitions. She was a finalist and People's Choice Award Winner in Klompching Gallery's FRESH ANNUAL. Her series NOW IS ALWAYS received solo exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Vermont Center for Photography, von Aeurspurg Gallery, and was named a Top Portfolio by Rfotofolio and an Outstanding Work by the Denis Roussel Awards. She has been shortlisted for the international Hariban Award, and was a winner of the Alternative Processes National Competition. Vaune is a recipient of grants from the Adolf & Esther Gottlieb Foundation, the Berkshire Taconic Foundation, and the Vermont Arts Council and NEA. Vaune received her M.A. from New York University and the International Center of Photography. She lives in Brattleboro, Vermont.
MARTIN VENEZKY | ROYAL OAK, MI
SMOKE HORNS TIRES, 2024
8 x 6 inches, 106 pages
Open Edition.
$40
As part of Venezky’s recent residency at University of Arkansas Fort Smith, he produced this small printed book. "Smoke Horns Tires" combines his skills in graphic design and photography. The book collects details from found photos and staged examples of the titular objects which were central to the work he made on-site.
In the middle of the book, without warning, the content shifts to "Men’s Thrill", a self-contained insert. We accept this kind of non-sequitur content while surfing the web or switching channels. It feeds our hunger for distraction. It is stranger (and more exhilarating) to see it in print. These middle pages contain a compilation of photographs from his collection of "men pretending to hurt each other," a topic he has been fascinated with for years. And even though the two documents are separate, there is seepage of each publication’s content into the other.
"Smoke Horns Tires" was a component of my end-of-semester exhibition and copies were given to all who attended. It was a gift in exchange for the generosity of the residency, and an example to the UAFS students of a way to combine design and studio art which, in the classroom, tends to remain separate.
Martin Venezky is an artist and photographer exploring relationships between objects, abstract form, drawing, and the image. His work shifts scale from intimate gatherings of discarded objects to expansive wall-sized installations.
In 2001 the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art honored Venezky with a solo exhibition, and, in 2005, his monograph, It Is Beautiful...Then Gone, was published by Princeton Architectural Press. In 2016 Venezky was named a member of the esteemed Alliance Graphique Internationale, and recently, San Francisco’s Letterform Archive has acquired an extensive collection of his work, studies and process for their permanent collection.
Venezky has an undergraduate degree in Visual Studies from Dartmouth College and an MFA in Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art. He has taught at RISD and CalArts and, for more than thirty years, at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where he is currently Professor Emeritus in the Graduate Design Program.
Although a longtime resident of San Francisco, Venezky relocated to Michigan to complete a second MFA in Photography at Cranbrook, thirty years after receiving his design degree from the same institution. He completed his studies in May 2024 and is continuing his practice in photography, drawing, and design.
LORI WALSH-VAN WEY | ALEXANDRIA, VA
Our Lady of the Stones, 2024,
Tea-toned cyanotype on hot press watercolor paper,
11 x 14 inches framed.
Unique.
$300
“Our Lady of the Stones” was inspired by a recent trip to the UK and Wey’s fascination with English folk horror and pre-Christian religion - both fact and fantasy. It was created by digitally combining open-source images found on museum and library websites into an image that was then printed on a clear plastic sheet to be used as a “digital negative.” This negative was used with a sheet of acid-free hot press watercolor paper coated with cyanotype solution and exposed to UV light. Once dry, the finished print was toned in strong black tea, creating a black and sepia color shift (and a nod to the UK).
Lori Walsh-Van Wey was born near the Jersey shore in 1971. She attended the Savannah College of Art and Design, as well as several ongoing education classes at places such as the Corcoran School and the Smithsonian. She is known for using toy and vintage film cameras with expired and experimental film, and her most recent works have been prints combining digital collage negatives with cyanotype. She currently resides in Northern Virginia and is a regular participant in art shows in the Washington DC area.
WILL WARASILA | LIVINGSTON, MT
Joshua (Bozeman, MT), 2025,
Archival Pigment Print,
10 x 12.5 inches, 26 x 21 inches framed,
Edition #1 of 5 + 2 AP.
$2,000
The portrait of Joshua was made in Feb 2025 on a -15 F degree afternoon in Bozeman, Montana. Joshua has been experiencing homelessness for over a decade and has been living out of his car for several years. When walking down the street lined with RVs, just outside downtown Bozeman, Joshua opened his car door out of the side of the snow bank and asked me to take his photograph.
Will Warasila is an American photographer focused on long-term documentary projects concerning toxicity, the environment, and slow violence. Will received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in Experimental Documentary Arts from Duke University. He published his first book, Quicker than Coal Ash, with Gnomic Book in 2022. Will's work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Oxford American, among others.
KYLE WORTHY & LEAH WORTHY | CHARLOTTE, NC
Oxford Gothic, 2024,
9 x 6.25 inches. 112 pages.
Edition of 30.
$325
Oxford Gothic, a 112-page, handbound book, was inspired by Worthy’s father’s boyhood in Northeast Alabama and how his family life was strained in the aftermath of a terrible accident, leading him to seek refuge by spending his afternoons walking the train tracks with his grandfather. It explores the ways opposing emotions wrestle in our memories of childhood and how, as adults, we never stop pursuing the resolution of our earliest pain.
Offered in a limited edition of 30 copies, the book combines original photographs with prose poetry written by his sister, Leah Worthy. After building an initial maquette, he invited Leah to respond to the work. Then, they combined our efforts to make sure the images and text were working together to tell the story they wanted to tell.
The cover of Oxford Gothic is made from silk, featuring hand-tipped book plates on the front and spine. The original photographs were commercially printed in duotone with the assistance of Conveyor Studio. The archive reproductions and prose poetry were printed in the artist home studio on archival paper. He collaborated with Eliot Dudik of Eliot Dudik Studios in Richmond, VA to complete the binding of the book.
Kyle Worthy is a photographer and book artist based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He graduated from Clemson University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2004. A photographer since the age of 15, his work explores the intricate relationship between memory and image.
Kyle Worthy's books are featured in prominent permanent collections, such as the Special Collections Research Center at Swem Library at William & Mary, Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina, and the W.L. Eury Appalachian Collection at Appalachian State University. His work has also been showcased in various juried and group exhibitions, including the 2024 Montgomery Photo Festival and the 2024 Slow Exposures exhibition. He has held solo shows at the Ross Gallery (Charlotte, NC, 2017) and MoNA Gallery (Charlotte, NC 2014).
In addition to his exhibitions, Kyle is the co-founder of White Peach Press and Memory Vistas Editions. His recent publications include Dark Water Lavender (2022), Tuesday in Mobile (2023), Fireworks (2023) and Oxford Gothic (2024). His books have received recognition, including the 2024 Award of Excellence at the PhotoNOLA Festival Photobook Competition.
ANNA YEROSHENKO | BOSTON, MA
Hidden Dimensions #5, 2024
Archival Pigment Print,
20 x 16 inches framed.
Edition 1 of 10.
$2,200
Hidden Dimensions is a series of images of architecture converted into photographic sculptures. The re-imagined urban scenes invite viewers to reflect on how mundane architecture influences personal and social dimensions, directing the way we move, think, and feel.
Walls, backyards, fences and signs are the subjects of Anna's photographs. These often featureless, neglected structures, that we are surrounded by and take for granted, yet are the stage sets of our lives. Akin to abandoned theatrical props, they carry a sense of impermanence and malfunction: family houses that now provide temporary havens for strangers, misleading signs, and fences that protect from nothing. Many of these structures have lost their original function, are no longer what they seem and become a monotonous background. They evoke a feeling of disorientation and futility. Combined they create a maze, that constrain physical space and thoughts.
Anna manipulate her paper photographs to build architectural constructions that would be impossible in the real world. The folds and cuts give the images new depth, allowing us to look beyond what is seen. Balancing the edge of the factual and the possible, her work attempts to break the walls we come up against and push the limits of perception.
Anna Yeroshenko is a photo-based artist with an interest in how the medium of photography can be nudged off-center, manipulated, or combined with other visual disciplines. Anna's interest in photography brought her to the US where she studied at the Lesley University College of Art and Design (the former Art Institute of Boston) and received her MFA in Photography in 2015.
Trained as an architect, this discipline plays a central role in her process as inspiration, subject and technique. Concerns with constructed space and the quality of our physical and social environment is a key focus.