GROWING UP
The recognition of adulthood is connected to the acceptance that childhood has slipped into the past. Memories from the places where we searched for maturity are the residue that is left behind. The interplay between immediate experience and adult recollection of these spaces is where I search for the understanding of adulthood.
As children develop, they move farther away from home and into secluded places such as schoolyards, trails, and empty lots. These locations are where children walk home from school, smoke cigarettes, and act out the fantasy of adulthood. The fragility of youth is also exposed in these spaces. The absence of supervision, naive experimentation, and the threat of injury create an environment filled with unknown dangers.
As an adult, my search for the understanding of maturity continues through the recollection of childhood memories. I search for the lingering memories of adolescence that reside in the spaces where I attempted to shed my youth. These transitory locations are where I collect fragments that evoke the universal and complicated sensation of becoming an adult.
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DANIEL FARNUM was born in the blue-collar town of Saginaw, Michigan. His photographs, which address the American experience, landscape, and culture, have been showcased nationally in several exhibitions and galleries in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and New York.
He is the recipient of many notable awards such as the Aperture Award from The Print Center in Philadelphia, two prizes from the Paul Sack Architectural Photography Contest, Grand Prize Winner of the Missouri Top 50 contest, the Juror’s Selection Award given by Christopher Rauschenberg at the Center for Fine Art Photography, and an award from William Jenkins, who was formerly the curator of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House and responsible for the influential New Topographics exhibition.
Dan’s prints have previously been exhibited at the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Center for Fine Art Photograph in Colorado, MPLS Photo Center in Minneapolis, Sea and Space Explorations in LA, Worth Ryder Center at UC Berkeley, and at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies in NYC. Additionally he has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, University of Toledo, University of Wisconsin, Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Kalmanson Gallery in Georgia, and at Alibi Fine Art in Chicago. Dan received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and BFA from the University of Michigan. He is currently a professor of photography at the University of Missouri. Dan recently accepted a new position at the University of Tulsa where he will be running the photography program as an Assistant Professor.