Chris Verene: Home Movies

Family dynamics and the relationship between generations have been Chris Verene’s subjects since he picked up a camera in high school in the late 1980s. Since then, he has consistently documented the lives of his relatives and friends in their hometown of Galesburg, Illinois.

Verene has written, “Each person you see here has been in my life for a very long time, and my commitment to our relationship is forever, for good times and bad times, for all the future. My family accepted my plan to follow their lives with my camera. I am honored that they still encourage me to this day.” 

Moments captured take place during intimate moments in homes, backyards, and neighborhood streets; and on special occasions like birthdays and weddings. They are both specific to a particular time and place but are also instantly recognizable as familiar stories of American life. Occasionally, Verene will add handwritten captions to the borders of his images, providing another layer of information about the individuals and situations being presented.

Chris Verene’s photographs have appeared in numerous exhibitions and monographs, and his work is in many museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum, J. Paul Getty Museum, San Francisco MoMA, and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, among others. He is Associate Professor of Photography at The College of Staten Island, CUNY; and his work is represented by Postmasters Gallery.
 

IMAGE: Chris Verene, My Cousin’s Husband’s Brother’s Cousin’s Cousins, undated, C-print with hand-printed caption in oil, mounted on Sintra. Courtesy of the artist.