Wortendyke, Krista

American, b. 1979, New York

BiographyKrista Wortendyke focuses on violence and its representation in the media. In her series Interventions (2007) she alters appropriated images depicting various incarnations of brutality around the world. She is primarily concerned with the difficulty of emotionally connecting with images in an oversaturated image culture. Each image that Wortendyke appropriates holds historical significance, which she confounds by painting a swath of color and drawing minimal, referential lines over the violent imagery underneath. In Thai (2007), the original photograph depicts a scene from the 1976 Thammasat University Massacre in Thailand, in which forty-six people were killed and their bodies mutilated after they organized a protest against the military regime under Thanom Kittikachorn. Hidden beneath Wortendyke’s color block, a supporter of the regime is about to strike the dead body of one of the massacre’s victims. In re-examining widely broadcasted traumatic depictions, Wortendyke slows down the reading of the sensitive imagery and brings quiet contemplation to the moments of historical aggression.

Krista Wortendyke completed her MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago (2007) and her BFA in photography from Southampton College of Long Island University (2002). Wortendyke has been exhibited across the United States. Selected solo exhibitions include: Mess Hall, Chicago, IL (2011); Packer Schopf Gallery, Chicago, IL (2010); Avram Gallery, Southampton, NY (2002). Selected group exhibitions include: SoHo20 Gallery, New York, NY (2007); Massachusetts State House, Boston, MA (2008); David Weinberg Gallery, Chicago, IL (2008, 2013); Spacetalker, Houston, TX (2010); and 56 Avenue C, New York, NY (2013). In addition to the Museum of Contemporary Photography, her work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.