Dana Fritz

(b.1970; resides Lincoln, NE)

Glasshouse, Jardin Botanico, Madrid, 2003

Desert Vista, Princess of Wales Conservatory, Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, 2003

Tree Over Tidepool, Hama Rikyu, Tokyo, 2003

Dana Frtiz’s on-going project Garden Views: the Culture of Nature includes more than 80 prints from the diverse gardens of the United States, England, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan. The beauty of these carefully maintained spaces concerns Fritz less than what that careful maintenance reveals about the cultures these gardens can be found in. To that end, her square gelatin-silver prints emphasize structure: the braces, binding, stakes, and wires used to control the flora, or else they depict the mowed, trimmed, and sheared aftermath of such efforts. These gardens evidence a world-wide desire not to protect nature so much as to perfect it, improve on it at least, though just what that means varies from society to society. A selection of 15 Garden Views is represented in this portfolio.

Dana Fritz was born in 1970 in Kansas City, Missouri. She received a BFA in Photography/Video from Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri (1992) and an MFA in Intermedia from Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona (1995). Her work is included in the collections of Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, Arizona; Bibliothéque Nationale de France, Paris, France; Center for Photography at Woodstock, New Paltz, New York; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona; and Wayne State College, Wayne, Nebraska. Fritz is an associate professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln department of art and art history.

- Kendra Greene

http://www.unl.edu/fritz/