Artist Profile: Sean Lennon Salyards

By Jennifer Eberbach

Reprinted from CULTUREWEEK. (Bloomington, IN). April 2007

The Buskirk-Chumley’s Textillery Gallery will highlight photographs by IU student Sean Salyards this month as part of its ongoing series of exhibits featuring works created by local and regional artists. Salyards took his series of 12 environmental portraits, collectively titled Acquaintances, on several trips to the East Coast and north and south of Bloomington beginning in 2004.

Salyards explained his relationship with the individuals he met and photographed in the following way. “At the simplest level there is a social transaction that takes place between two strangers (the individual and myself) that results in a summarizing familiarity with each other’s circumstances; the individuals photographs are a part of what I would describe as a social contract that is greater in scope than simply the individuals and myself.”

The well-composed images emphasize the relationship between working-class Americans and their occupational and social environments. Salyards comments that the limited amount of time he had to portray an individual made is necessary to “rely heavily on the formal characteristic of art to show individuals in relations to their environment.”

Salyards is an M.F.A. candidate at the IU School of Fine Arts and an instructor of photography. Acquaintances and the Textillery Gallery are included in April’s Downtown Gallery Walk, held Friday, April 6, from 4:30-7:30 pm. The Textillery Gallery is located on the second floor of the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, 114 E. Kirkwood Ave., and is open during theater hours