Kristine Potter’s photos plumb “Dark Waters”

Kristine Potter: Dark Waters, which opened at the Momentary in Bentonville on May 11, is a striking series of black-and-white photographs enhanced by by a video and sound installation.

The exhibit concerns several themes of violence against women in the south. One is a genre of folk songs known as murder ballads, such as Knoxville Girl or Pretty Polly. Many of the landscape photos depict places and waterways with names like Murder Creek, Deadman’s Branch and Bloody Fork. Yet another inspiration was Southern Gothic authors like Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner. Finally, the show includes multimedia accompaniment with a haunting cello soundscape and videos of murder-ballad performances by country artists.

Murder ballads are an obscure yet familiar musical form. Some of the songs are two centuries old and came to the U.S. with immigrants from the British Isles and other parts of Europe. As recorded music evolved, many of the songs were adapted by popular artists. “Tom Dooley” was a number-one hit for the Kingston Trio in 1958. “Long Black Veil,” which was first charted by Lefty Frizzell, has been covered by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. 

Such songs of homicide, remorse and retribution have inspired grim narratives in cinema and television, which is another point of the Potter’s show. Film composer James Newton Howard wrote an Appalachian-style murder ballad titled “The Hanging Tree,” which Jennifer Lawrence sang in the third Hunger Games movie. 

Murder ballads have become a backing track for the south, according to the artist, coloring the way people perceive the region. The exhibit unravels associations between the land and a history of violence. 

Fans of black-and-white photography will admire this collection of 51 pictures. Most were shot with digital cameras and printed in archival pigment on Dibond. A few were captured on large-format film cameras. Though some of the pictures resemble photojournalism, Potter insisted that her process was one of discovery and wandering rather than documentation. The music and video elements amplify the exhibit’s ominous ambience. 

Kristine Potter was born in Dallas in 1977. She  earned an MFA in photography from Yale in 2005 and a.Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018. She currently lives in Nashville and is an assistant professor of photography at Middle Tennessee State University. 

Kristine Potter: Dark Waters will be at the Momentary from May 11 through October 13. It’s free and advance tickets aren’t required. 

 Featured image:  “Knoxville Girl” by Kristine Potter