Terry Evans

Sam and I drove to our farm house in central Kansas just before the pandemic lockdown started in Chicago. I would wake up each morning and remember with dread the pandemic. I could not focus on making any new photography and the work I was doing before I left Chicago felt remote and meaningless. I’ve photographed the beloved farm place a lot, but felt little desire for photographing it more. Then every evening we watched the dusk change to night and the stars emerge in their light and I felt calmed. I wondered if I could make a picture that showed that movement from dusk to night, so throughout April I made pictures of the dusk and the night sky.

The prairie ecosystem has been a guide for Terry Evans since 1978. She photographs the prairies and plains of North America and the urban prairie of Chicago. Combining both aerial and ground photography, she delves into the intricate and complex relationships between land and people, advocating for the land itself and for local people who suffer environmental racism and injustice. She currently photographs ancient protected prairies and landscapes of hope. Evans has exhibited widely including one-person shows at the Art Institute of Chicago, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, The Field Museum of Natural History, and Amon Carter Museum of Art. Her work is in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, National Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Museum of Art, Spencer Museum of Art, and many more. Evans has published five books including Heartland: The Photographs of Terry Evans and Prairie Stories. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and the recipient of an Anonymous is a Woman award.