Daniel W. Coburn’s photographs address the tragic events that haunt his family living in the Midwest. Trials involving substance and domestic abuse, suicide and mental illness surface in the imagery as he manifests a narrative from the archive and experiences in his life.

Coburn’s The Hereditary Estate will be featured in the Griffin Museum’s Atelier Gallery at the Stoneham Theatre in Stoneham, MA, June 4-August 23, 2015. It runs parallel to the theater’s productions of “How to Succeed in Business” and “Sisters Summer School Catechism”

A reception is June 24th, 2015, from 6:30-8:30pm. The artist will be present and give an informal talk about the exhibition and the recently published book will be available.

“I collect and manipulate found family photographs in an attempt to amend and correct the idealized narrative present in my own family archive,” says Coburn, “These images are a tangible manifestation of memories and experiences acquired during my journey to adulthood, and function as a supplement to the broken family album assembled by family members.”

“The Hereditary Estate is an honest approach to dealing with severe issues within a family structure. Oftentimes matters likes these are swept under the rug but Coburn embraces the faults and tragedies within his family and acknowledges how they have shaped him,” says Frances Jakubek, Associate Director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “An avenue of self discovery is uncovered as he repurposes segments of his family’s albums.”

Coburn lives and works in Lawrence, Kansas. Selections from this body of work have been featured in exhibitions at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art and the Chelsea Museum of Art in New York. Coburn’s prints are held in collections at the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Mulvane Art Museum, the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, and the Mariana Kistler-Beach Museum of Art.

His first artist’s monograph, The Hereditary Estate, was published by Kehrer Verlag in 2015. Daniel’s work has been published widely, most recently appearing in the International New York Times. Coburn received his MFA with distinction from the University of New Mexico in 2013. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Photo Media at the University of Kansas.