Rebecca Sexton Larson is a Tampa studio artist working with photographic processes. Larson has been awarded 3 Florida Individual Artist Fellowships. In 2006, she received an Artist Enhancement Grant from the State of Florida and, in 2005, was commissioned by the City of Tampa as its Photographer Laureate for a year. Sexton Larson's photographs are in numerous significant collections throughout the country.

Artist Statement

"When I was eleven I came across one of my grandmother's family photo albums. The kind that had a worn leather cover embossed diagonally across the front with the word "photographs," made up of sheets and sheets of black paper, each page containing the personal record of our family. As I flipped through, I recognized the early images of stoic family members, photos of military men, children, and family picnics. But mid-way through, the album took a strange turn. There amongst the photos of family reunions were photographs of a woman missing her head. Not on just one photo, but many, she had been strategically cut from the family. My grandmother's early attempt at coming to terms with her son's divorce resulted in the loss and reimagining of our family history."

Piecing together a disconnected family history, The Understudy is a series of painted photos. from manipulated digital negatives. Blurring the boundaries between myth and reality, figures from the found cabinet cards act as 'understudies' or stand-ins for my missing and often forgotten family members. I am drawn to the interplay between the autobiographical and imaginary through stories of romantic unions, mortality, and family structure.

These images are a blueprint to my past and a history that I didn’t discover until well into adulthood, stories the family would tell in passing or whisper at family gatherings but rarely documented. The understudies provide a veil of anonymity to the participants and a way to commemorate the family legacy.

Website

sextonlarson.com