"The elements of the burn—the mysterious luminosity, the smoke that both obscures and reveals—suggest a liminal space, a zone of ambiguity where destruction merges with renewal."

Jane Fulton Alt photographs controlled prairie burns."A controlled burn is deliberately set; its violent, destructive force reduces invasive vegetation so that native plants can continue to prosper," says Alt.

Her series of photographs, The Burn, is featured in the Atelier Gallery of the Griffin Museum October 3, 2013 through December 8, 2013. A reception with the artist is October 10, 2013 at 7pm.

In 2007, Fulton Alt began this series after witnessing her first controlled burn. She says, "I was immediately struck by the burn’s visual and expressive potential, as well as the way it evoked themes that are at the core of my photographic work."

She continues, "These images of regenerative destruction have a personal significance—I photographed my first burn at the same time my sister began a course of chemotherapy—yet they constitute a universal metaphor: the moment when life and death are not contradictory but are perceived as a single process to be embraced as a whole."

Jane Fulton Alt is a fine art photographer based in the Chicago area. Numerous awards include Photolucida’s Critical Mass Award and the Humble Arts 31 Women in Art Photography.

She has published Look and Leave: Photographs and Stories of New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward about the aftermath of Katrina in 2009. Alt’s work is in numerous permanent collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, New Orleans Museum of Art, De Paul; Center for Photography, Woodstock.

Prior to the public reception, at 6:15 p.m., Jane Fulton Alt will give a informal gallery talk to members about her series, The Burn, featured in the Atelier Gallery of the Griffin Museum of Photography.