Exhibition Runs October 15—November 15, 2024
Gallery Opening: October 15

Drawn to Water:
Water calls to us as human beings, perhaps because we are mostly made up of the stuff. It shapes the land and makes life livable. We are drawn to water for many reasons: for our health and survival, for spiritual rites and rituals, for athletic endeavors, and often for the pure pleasure of social engagement. Water cleanses and invigorates. In the heat of a southern summer it cools us and acts as a social focal point. Water attracts every race and social strata. It can be a place of isolation and lone meditation or a location where one lets down one’s guard, along with much clothing, and rub shoulders with complete strangers. Water motivates us to dare and it will cushion our fall.

Photograph Bryce Lankard

Photograph: Bryce Lankard

Having spent 30 years away from my native state, I returned to North Carolina in 2012 with an idea to rediscover this beloved place with fresh eyes. I found myself drawn to the old landmarks that have remained the bookmarks of my memory and discovered that a common thread among them was water. My youthful fantasies were of Huck Finn floating down the Mississippi and my realities were tubing down mountain streams in water so cold it turned your lips blue. I did build a raft once…it sunk. Water flows down out of the Blue Ridge mountains and finds it way to the Atlantic ocean. It meanders its way across my southern landscape. Undeniably, water stands at the center of myriad political and environmental debates, however my interest in these images is to examine the social significance of water in our lives. These photographs capture the variety of human interaction found around beaches, lakes and quarries, along rivers, waterfalls and swimming holes.

-Bryce Lankard

About Bryce Lankard

Bryce Lankard's career has been immersed in photography from nearly every angle. He has been an art director, curator, educator, creative director, arts administrator, designer, and editor. An acclaimed editorial, documentary and fine art photographer, his work has been published internationally in countless magazines and he has exhibited in galleries and museums around the globe alongside such luminaries as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Andres Serrano, Bruce Davidson and Robert Frank. In 2018 his work was in “Across County Lines; Contemporary Photography from the Piedmont” at the Nasher Museum. “Drawn to Water” has been exhibited at Flanders Gallery in Raleigh, NC, at the South East Center for Photography in Greenville, SC and selections from the project have appeared in other exhibitions, most recently in “Water, Water” at the Walter Anderson Museum, in Ocean Springs, Miss.

A native of North Carolina and UNC alumnus, he has spent significant time in New Orleans and New York City. In 1995