Banner: Kristine Potter headshot. Courtesy of the artist.

Kristine Potter: The Body Politic
August 28 - November 14, 2025
Margie E. West Gallery at the Dodd Galleries

Opening Thursday, Sept 4, 2025

• Artist Lecture at 4 pm in Lamar Dodd School of Art Main Building, S150
• Public reception: 5 - 7 pm at the Dodd Galleries

The Dodd Galleries at the University of Georgia are pleased to announce The Body Politic, our 2025 Margie E. West Prize recipient exhibition in which Lamar Dodd School of Art alumna, Kristine Potter (American, b. 1977)—BFA Photography and BA Art History (‘01)—presents a survey of selected work from three series: The Gray Line (2005-2010), Manifest (2012-2017), and Dark Waters (2015-2023). Potter will deliver an artist lecture on Thursday, September 4^th in room S150 of the Lamar Dodd School of Art (adjacent to the Margie E. West gallery), in advance of the public reception that evening.

The Body Politic brings together Potter’s series The Gray Line, Manifest, and Dark Waters to examine how systems of power shape both the human body and the American landscape. Reframing the traditional metaphor of the state as a unified organism, the title is used here to explore how cultural and national myths take hold at the level of the individual, through gesture, posture, ritual, and the land itself. These photographs track the slow internalization of inherited roles and the quiet tension between performance and lived experience.

Kristine Potter (American, b. 1977); The Medium, 2017, from the series Dark Waters. © Kristine Potter

In The Gray Line, cadets at West Point are photographed as they begin to adopt the codes of military life: rather than symbols of discipline or dominance, they appear caught in the vulnerable process of formation. Manifest turns to the American West, where men move through a disoriented, indifferent terrain. The project interrogates the persistent myth of the frontiersman, capturing its unraveling in the absence of conquest. Dark Waters enters the American South through a different lens, focusing on how narratives of gendered violence are passed down, embodied, and normalized. Here, portraits, landscapes, and performances fold together to show how story becomes structure, shaping how women navigate memory, danger, and desire. Taken together, the works trace the subtle choreography of power as it plays out on bodies and land.

“I’m so glad to present this award and exhibition to Kristine Potter, whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with prior in 2022 to debut her Dark Waters series in Tennessee,” says Rachel Waldrop, Dodd Galleries and Athenaeum, director at the Lamar Dodd School of Art. “Kristine’s commitment to her practice is a testament to the strong foundation in photography and art history planted here at UGA decades ago. It is so wonderful to support mid-career women artists of Kristine’s caliber and provide a platform for her work to return in a significant presentation here in Athens, especially as a Dodd alumni!”

Additionally, the Lamar Dodd School of Art will participate in the 2025 Atlanta Art Fair from September 25-28, with a special exhibition booth highlighting Potter’s work as well as the history of the Margie E. West Prize. Dodd alumni are encouraged to register online with our creative directory as the Margie E. West Prize recognizes an accomplished artist that graduated from the Lamar Dodd School of Art.

About the Artist

Kristine Potter (American, b. 1977) is an artist whose work explores masculine archetypes, the American landscape, and the cultural tendency to mythologize the past. Her first monograph, Manifest, was published by TBW Books in 2018. She has received numerous national and international awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), the Grand Prix Image Vevey (2019–2020), and the Hariban Prize (2023). Her second monograph, Dark Waters, was published by Aperture in 2023. Potter's work is included in numerous public and private collections, such as the High Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Georgia Museum of Art, Light Work, the Swiss Camera Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Middle Tennessee State University and is represented by Sasha Wolf Projects in New York and MiCamera in Milan. She holds a BFA in Photography and BA in Art History from the University of Georgia (2001) and an MFA in Photography from Yale University (2005).

About the Margie E. West Prize

Established in 2020, the Margie E. West Prize recognizes an accomplished artist or scholar who graduated from the Lamar Dodd School of Art with a solo exhibition in the Margie E. West Gallery. Past recipients of the Margie E West Prize include John Douglas Powers (’08, MFA with distinction), Pam Longobardi (’81, BFA), Zipporah Camille Thompson (’15, MFA), Erin Dunn (’14 MA), and Hong Hong (’14 MFA). The Lamar Dodd School of Art is grateful for the support of the West family for our programming and exhibitions in the Marjorie Eichenlaub West Gallery, which is supported by the Marjorie Eichenlaub West Gallery Endowment Fund. 
Margie West served on the boards of the High Museum, the Georgia Museum of Art, and was a long-time member of the Forward Arts Foundation and a founding member of the Ceramic Circle of Atlanta. Her love of the arts was shared and passed down to her family, as her granddaughters attended Lamar Dodd School of Art. Margie’s contributions to the arts will be part of her lasting legacy. She will always be remembered as a voracious collector with a keen eye and unbridled passion for the arts. 

For more information, contact Rachel Waldrop, Director and Curator, Dodd Galleries and Atheneum: rachel.waldrop@uga.edu. The Dodd Galleries are open M-Fri in the main Lamar Dodd School of Art building, from 9am-4:30pm. The Lamar Dodd School of Art is closed on weekends, University holidays, and home game days.

Kristine Potter’s The Body Politic and the annual Margie E. West Prize is supported by the Marjorie E. West Gallery Endowment Fund. Additional support is provided by UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and The Lamar Dodd School of Art. For support opportunities, contact Grace Mercer, Development Associate: grace.mercer@uga.edu