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Join us for opening night of "How Far It Has Traveled to Reach This Light", by photographer Christine Lorenz, featuring our salt made here in the Kanawha Valley. Free event! No tickets needed. Cash/credit bar available. Complimentary charcuterie available.
Artist Statement: I use the tools of macro photography to examine the products of extraction, creating spaces for reflection on the ways we find meaning in materials. I’m particularly interested in salt, because nothing is more familiar: to be human is to recognize it. It’s an equalizer. And as a mineral of the earth, it has a compelling way of behaving over time. It’s a shape shifter, moving into and out of visibility, dispersing and reorganizing on its own.
Salt is a catalyst in countless aspects of human connection. It’s irresistible to start digging into where it comes from, and where it goes. This project is built on crystals cultivated from the saline springs of the Kanawha Valley. The springs draw from underground strata that predate Pangea. The salt is extracted and distributed by descendants of an industry that thrived in the region in the early 19th century. In this exhibition, the images of these crystals catch the light in the place where the material was drawn to the surface.
This is a place with a rich and complex history, entwined with the earth and the fallout of what we have done with it. To live in Appalachia is to be at home with elements that aggregate over millennia—that are drawn up through the weight that accumulates above, that reach the light and disperse, that self-organize into rough derivatives of platonic forms, however briefly. To be human is to be a part of the life cycle of these minerals every day.
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Christine Lorenz uses photography to explore the ways we find meaning in materials. Her photographs have been shown at Photographic Exploration Project in Berlin, photo-eye gallery in Santa Fe, Erie Art Museum, and Brooklyn Waterfront Arts Coalition. Her work has been featured by Refract Journal, Der Greif, Lenscratch, and Fraction Magazine. She was a 2025 artist in residence at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Lorenz earned her MFA at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and BA at The Ohio State University. She publishes small-edition photobooks and has produced three collaborative art and text projects with Arts Letters and Numbers, New York. She was a founding member of Flock Artist Collective, which elevates the intertwined work of art and parenting. She teaches at Duquesne University and Point Park University.
Additional photography from the Kanawha Salines series will be on view at Silver Eye Center for Photography as part of Radial Survey 4 from November 6 to February 7.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
4797 Midland Dr., Charleston, WV, United States, West Virginia 25306
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