Jeff Smudde

This collection of recent photographs highlights my interest in rural scenes and the connection that rural America has with spirituality and especially Christianity. My interest in this landscape and the communities that live there is informed by my upbringing in the Midwest, being raised Catholic and past work as a journalist where I often covered stories in rural Illinois. Primarily working in black and white, these photographs delve into the vastness, isolation and spiritualism often found in rural America.

These photographs are selections from multiple ongoing series. My recent works focus on rural Illinois and spirituality, collecting masses of photographs to find relationships between them. These images follow themes that I’ve been working with for some time to act as an umbrella for my work made in rural spaces. While I no longer feel connected to the Church, there is always something that pulls me to make photographs about faith and understanding, how these things connect with the places I photograph. www.jeffsmudde.com