The Wall of Legacy
Each semester, the Wall of Legacy commemorates artists, alumni, and former Austin Peay State University educators whose creative work has inspired generations of students, enriched the university community, and brought recognition to the institution.
The Wall of Legacy project is made possible by Jim & Dottie Mann through the APSU Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts.
Current Exhibition
The Wall of Legacy at the Art + Design Building on the Austin Peay State University
campus, in collaboration with The New Gallery and the Art + Design Department, is
honored to feature works by Professor Emeritus Susan Bryant. Six photographs from
the Southward series distill the essence of the American Southeast landscape by exploring dense
canopies, open vistas, dramatic skies, still waters, live oaks, wooded trails, gulf
storms, and back roads.
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Susan Bryant |
Bryant said, “I am interested in how nature can act as a metaphor for human emotion. I am amazed by how quickly nature can change from comforting to threatening, and that each of these conditions is imbued with beauty, power, mystery, serenity, grace, and allegory. My aim is to capture the timeless essence of a place through close observation of light and dark, space and atmosphere, stillness and silence.”
For this work, Bryant used the 19th-century wet plate collodion process, such as tintypes and ambrotypes. Her unique process involves producing plates on-site with the intent to integrate the 19th-century process with 21st-century digital technology. Bryant explained, "I am challenged and inspired by this leaping from one century's technology and aesthetic to another. I welcome the combination of control and happenstance that occurs during my process, from exposure to plate to print. One of the many reasons I am drawn to collodion is that it requires me to slow down, and it allows me to experience anticipation for the mysterious images and singular, tangible, precious objects that result."
Susan Bryant received her BFA in painting in 1976 from Indiana University and her
MFA in photography in 1978 from Indiana State University. She retired from APSU in
2019 after teaching photography for 37 years. Her personal work includes gelatin silver
prints, hand-colored silver prints, digital photographs, and, most recently, the 19th-century
processes of daguerreotypes, tintypes, and wet-plate collodion negatives and positives
(ambrotypes). Her work has been widely exhibited across the United States in solo
and juried exhibitions. Among other honors and awards, she is the recipient of a Tennessee
Arts Commission Fellowship.
Photos provided by the Artist