Black and white photo by Janna Ireland looking through tall doorway surrounded by windows - Hillside Memorial Park, No. 1, 2019. Archival pigment print, edition 1 of 5. SBMA, Museum Purchase.
Photo by Janna Ireland, Hillside Memorial Park, No. 1, 2019. Archival pigment print, edition 1 of 5. SBMA, Museum purchase. Credit: Janna Ireland

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) and Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB) are co-hosting the solo exhibit Janna Ireland: True Story Index, representing a two-institution collaboration, presentation, and catalog.

Ireland’s photographic work is primarily concerned with the interconnected themes of family, home, and the expression of Black identity in American culture.

In 2016, Ireland began photographing structures designed by legendary Black architect Paul R. Williams. A collection of 250 of these photographs was published in the 2020 monograph Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View.

Both of these aspects of Ireland’s art will be interwoven in each of the two venues’ presentations, which will include newly commissioned works and works from the artist’s collection, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s permanent collection, and private collections.

Janna Ireland: True Story Index is a mid-career survey and the largest presentation of Ireland’s photographs and installations to date.

Curated by Charles Wylie, SBMA curator of photography and new media, and Frederick Janka, MCASB, it will be on view at both venues, Feb. 11-June 2.

Exhibit-related programs will take place in Santa Barbara in February, with dates to be determined for opening events at each institution, including a public conversation with the artist.

Ireland lives in Los Angeles, where she is assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Occidental College. She earned her MFA from the UCLA Department of Art and her BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Art’s Department of Photography and Imaging.

In 2021, Ireland was awarded a Peter E. Pool Research Fellowship by the Nevada Museum of Art to photograph Paul R. Williams’ work in Nevada. A solo exhibit of this work opened at the Nevada Museum of Art in 2022 and traveled to the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas, and the AIA Center for Architecture in New York.

Ireland’s photographs are held in the permanent collections of institutions including LACMA, the California African American Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago.

Janna Ireland’s website may be viewed at www.jannaireland.com.