Projective Eye Gallery

COVID-19 UPDATE: The Dubois Center at UNC Charlotte Center City opened September 28. 

Current Exhibition

Earthbound Riches: Stacy Kranitz and Caroline Hatfield
August 16-October 29
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 2, 6:00-8:30 pm

The Projective Eye Gallery presents works by Stacy Kranitz and Caroline Hatfield in Earthbound Riches.

Working within the documentary tradition, Stacy Kranitz makes photographs that acknowledge the limits of photographic representation. Her images do not tell the “truth” but are honest about their inherent shortcomings, and thus reclaim these failures (exoticism, ambiguity, fetishization) as sympathetic equivalents in order to more forcefully convey the complexity and instability of the lives, places, and moments they depict. Her work for Earthbound Riches includes collected images, text, and objects that trace exploration and extraction in central Appalachia.

Kranitz was born in Kentucky and currently lives in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee. Kranitz is a current Guggenheim Fellow. Additional awards include Time Magazine Instagram Photographer of the Year (2015), the Michael P. Smith Fund for Documentary Photography Award (2017) a We, Women Grant (2020) and a Southern Documentary Fund Research and Development grant (2020) Her work was recently shortlisted for the Louis Roederer Discovery Award (2019). Her first monograph, As it Was Give(n) to Me, will be published by Twin Palms.

Caroline Hatfield’s creative practice utilizes sculpture, installation, photography, and writing to explore themes of landscape and science fiction. After completing a Sculpture BFA at The University of Tennessee, she earned an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art from Towson University. Hatfield has been included in numerous publications and has exhibited artwork nationally at venues such as the Mint Museum in Charlotte and The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, DE. Recent solo exhibitions include Land and Water at 500 X Gallery in Dallas, TX and  Unearthing at Target Gallery in Alexandria, VA. Hatfield is a recipient of the Trawick Contemporary Art Prize as well as a South Arts Cross-Sector Impact Grant. She lives in East Tennessee, where she works professionally as a woodworker and educator. Her installation in the Projective Eye Gallery is called “Depths and Distances." In addition to coal slag, the installation will feature ceramic forms and lighted elements. 

"I explore the concept of landscape as medium, rather than subject," Hatfield writes in her artist statement. "Depicting strange, desolate environments and sublime forces, my work references the abstracted, altered land of our world while shifting outwards towards a science fictional realm. Sculptural landscapes composed of industrial references, geological formations, and mutable material accumulate into form, while emanating an energy of transformation and process. Elemental models, miniatures, and depictions of alternative ground are found in the balance of presence and absence, creation and destruction, artificial and organic, potential and waste."

Schedule a FREE tour!

The gallery offers free tours for groups of six or more. 

Please contact Wendy Fishman at 704-687-0881 to schedule a tour for your group. 

Pictured here: students from First Ward Elementary School learn about the Henrique Oliveira installation and the improvisatory dance Tres para Tres.

About the CoA+A Gallery System: The mission of the College of Arts + Architecture gallery system is to create lively forums in which the curious encounter the work of global, regional, and local artists through diverse media and dynamic exchanges that are nourished by the intellectual and creative life of the university. Our programming will echo crossovers of the visual arts, architecture, music, theatre, and dance inherent to the College of Arts + Architecture at UNC Charlotte. We seek to provide a haven for experimentation, to invigorate the environments we occupy, and to amplify the means to engage art and design in our community.