Katy Grannan is an American photographer who is known for her intimate portraits of anonymous people. Her photographs capture people in everyday surroundings and are often informed by memories of her own childhood. Artists Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin inspire her photographic practice.
Read MoreGrannan was born in Arlington, Massachusetts. In 1991, Grannan received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. A few years later, Grannan completed her Master of Fine Arts at Yale University in New Haven in 1999.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Grannan photographed strangers she met through advertisements placed in local newspapers in the American northeast. Her series Poughkeepsie Journal (1998–1999) and Dream America (2000) encapsulated the lives of strangers in familiar yet unsettling environments. Her photographs of ordinary people in suburban American homes gained her recognition as an emerging portrait photographer and allowed her to continue pursuing her artistic practice.
In the series 'Poughkeepsie Journal' (1999), Grannan uses non-professional models as her subject. The models are women who were in their late teens and early twenties at the time of the shoot. Grannan photographed them in their own homes, usually their parents' houses, surrounded by dated furnishings and wearing only underwear or sometimes completely nude. She would set up the shoots quickly, using only her camera, a fan, and a light. Grannan would rearrange the model's furnishings, using them as props for her photographs to visualise each woman's story.
'Poughkeepsie Journal' captures a variety of young woman who are living ordinary lives in northeast America. Grannan's intimate photographs depict these women momentarily escaping the ordinary, posing to achieve an element of independence or enchantment. Although some women appear slightly uneasy in their pose, Grannan encapsulates their desires to captivate and entice viewers. 'Poughkeepsie Journal' documents strangers conflicting wishes to be the focus of attention while remaining anonymous.
'Boulevard' is a series of street portraits taken in San Francisco and Los Angeles between 2008 and 2010. Grannan roamed each city to photograph individuals against stark white walls. Her shoots were typically carried out at midday, so as to catch the strongest natural light. Subjects range from street hustlers and drug addicts to beauty queens and celebrity impersonators. By using the searing midday sun as lighting, Grannan captures the minute details of each stranger. Her unforgiving photographs magnify details of thinning hair, sunspots, and varicose veins.
'Boulevard' depicts people who have reinvented themselves through costumes, hairstyles, and makeup. The intense portraits represent a range of individuals who at one time encapsulated the American dream of moving west and finding wealth and success. Grannan's series demonstrates the fraught relationship between ambition and delusion in contemporary society.
In 1999, Grannan was awarded the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant.
In 2004, she was the recipient of The Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers. In 2005, Grannan received the Aperture Award to an Emerging Artists.
Katy Grannan has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions.
Select solo exhibitions include Lady into Fox, FraenkelLAB, San Francisco (2017); Katy Grannan: The Nine and The Ninety-Nine, FOAM, Amsterdam (2015); Hundreds of Sparrows, Salon 94, New York (2015); The 99 & The Nine, Sherrick & Paul, Nashville (2015); The Sun & Other Stars: Katy Grannan & Charlie White, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (2012); Boulevard, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco (2011); Another Woman Who Died in Her Sleep, Greenberg Van Doren, New York (2008); Pictures, Greenberg Van Doren, St. Louis (2005); Sugar Camp Road / Morning Call, Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp (2003).
Select group exhibitions include Civilization: The Way We Live Now, toured to National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2019); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2019); and Musée des Civilisations de l'Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marseille (2021); This Land, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco (2018); Each with the Other, Adrien Rosenfeld Gallery, San Francisco (2018); Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins, Barbican Art Gallery, London (2018); Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney's Collection, Whitney Museum, New York (2017); The Only Way is Up, Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2016); Out of Focus: Photography, Saatchi Gallery, London (2012); The Female Gaze: Women look at Women, Cheim & Read, New York (2009).
Grannan's artwork is featured in the collections of several established galleries and institutions. Selected collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Grannan's Instagram can be found here.
Articles on Katy Grannan have been published by numerous publications, including New York Magazine.
Ocula | 2022
