Artist Talk with Dean Kessmann

In conjunction with the opening of his Photography Resident Exhibition, Dean Kessmann will speak about the practice behind the work, the walking, the looking, and the attention to everyday landscapes that shape each image. His photographs, produced primarily in and around Washington, DC, move along the threshold between representation and abstraction, asking whether the camera records the world as it appears or transforms it into something newly perceived.

Kessmann will reflect on the role of deliberate observation in his process, how sequencing and editing extend photography beyond the moment of capture, and what it means to honor the quiet complexity of places that might otherwise go unnoticed. The conversation will draw from his decades-long engagement with landscape and place, now deepened by his residency at The Bascom.

Free and open to all.