Present Tense

"Through such formal devices as series and multipanel works, JoAnn Verburg invigorates photography's common genres: the portrait, the landscape, the domestic view. Some of her works visually catch viewers off guard, leaving them unsure where they stand in relationship to the scene being shown; others investigate the passage of time, offering narratives that play out in either space or time, or both or neither. Another of Verburg's ongoing themes involves the intimate spaces of personal life, as shown in a series featuring her husband, the poet Jim Moore, sleeping or reading books and newspapers. These works achieve a delicate balance between unguarded intimacy and the reality, often harsh, of the current events featured on that day's newspaper, reaching out of the work and into the world. Whether taking pictures of artists, swimmers, newspapers, trees, or pyramids constructed from sand, Verburg explores representations of time and space."--Jacket.