Dallas photographer Brandon Thibodeaux has been photographing in the Mississippi Delta since 2009. While his work makes specific reference to the rural black experience, in his work we see themes of faith, identity, and perseverance that are common to us all. Thibodeaux states that these are “the traits of strong men.”

Thibodeaux’s series, When Morning Comes, is featured in the Main Gallery at the Griffin Museum January 8 through March 1, 2015. An opening reception with the artists takes place on January 10, 7-8:30 p.m. Magdalena Solé has a gallery talk and tour of Mississippi Delta at 4:00 PM. Brandon Thibodeaux has a gallery talk and tour of When Morning Comes at 5 PM. Bryan David Griffith has a members’ talk on his exhibition The Last Bookstores at 6:15 PM. The talks are FREE.

“I first traveled to the [Delta] in the summer of 2009 because I needed to breathe after my own troubled times,” said Brandon Thibodeaux. “I was in search of something stronger than myself and attended its churches not to photograph but to cry and be redeemed and to just be a part of the place. I was there to listen as I prayed for a revelation.”

“Over the past five years I have witnessed signs of strength against struggle, humility amidst pride, and a promise for deliverance in the lives that I’ve come to know here,” says Thibodeaux. “This is a land stigmatized by poverty beneath a long shadow of racism. I do not wish to overlook this fact but rather look between it for evidence of the tender and yet unwavering human spirit that resides within its fabric.”

“Brandon Thibodeaux’s photographs describe a sort of “splendor” in the ordinary,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “Thibodeaux’s Delta narrative recalls a spiritual and humane dialogue with the land and its people.”

Brandon Thibodeaux is a freelance photographer for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, Shell Oil and Time. He is a member of the photography collective MJR, based in New York City. His work has been recognized by American Photo Magazine, PDN, and the Oxford American lists him as one of their 100 Under 100, New Superstars of Southern Art 2012. He is the 2014 recipient of the Michael P. Smith Fund For Documentary Photography Grant.

This exhibition is sponsored in part by Critical Mass in Portland OR.