Stratton McCrady

Stratton McCrady is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily in photography. Centered in the performing arts, McCrady’s photos study the myriad complexities of people and their cravings for self-expression. In every way, his portrait making process promotes interactions with his subjects, embracing open expressions of gender, sexuality, advocacy, and shared control of power dynamics. His portrait project titled, Acting Out: Performances, Debaucheries, and Lies, explores the world of contemporary burlesque. These compositions thrive on surprises discovered when the performers decided which elements they would contribute to the artistic process including locations, props, costumes, and personal themes. Portraits from this project often expose a core truth in photography; that photographs will express meanings and evoke feelings, diverging from what either party may or may not have thought or believed at the time of their making. McCrady has exhibited work at the working primarily in photography. He has exhibited work at the Stove Factory gallery in Charlestown, MA, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Portland, ME, at Ube Art in Berkeley, CA, and at Jan Kossen Contemporary in New York City. In 2019-20 he deepened his focus on an immersive and multi-pronged project titled, Kindred Issue. This project includes a broad search into his family’s past history of racism and slave holding. This has involved extensive research into southern and family history, personal writing about observations, and experiences with race in his own life, and the steady effort to build an interview piece with volunteers who can share the life experience of living black in America. During the month directly before the American Coronavirus crash, Stratton and his wife embarked on an extensive trip to the South, designed specifically to reconnect him with places and people central to Kindred Issue. He plans to proceed toward exhibition, including oral histories, portraiture and publication.

http://www.strattonmccrady.com

This bio/description was originally published in 2019 and updated in 2020. For more current information, please refer to the award recipient's website (if provided).