When University of Memphis senior Rodney Harrison was 14, he said he often went to the record store and bought the same record three times because it was re-released with a different photograph on it.
“I knew then that I wanted to make pictures for a living,” Harrison said.
Harrison’s work is currently on display at the Vagina Monologues art show, which opened last Friday at Soho Gallery on South Main, and will remain up throughout the week.
Peter Schjeldahl, an art critic for New Yorker Magazine, recently judged his photographs, along with all of the featured work in The University Museum student exposition.
“Pretty much everything I’ve ever worked on deals with demographics, space and how space is used by people, and for what reasons,” Harrison said. “I don’t really think I belong to any particular space—I’m kind of an outsider, so I essentially feel I belong in every space.”
His recent photographs involve the demographics of dance clubs based on different types of music—R&B, old school soul, country western, and hip hop, according to Harrison.
“I call the establishment and ask if I can photograph, and then I dress like I am going out dancing,” Harrison said.
The first photographs taken start out as ‘fake’ photographs, according to Harrison, to sort out who wants to be photographed from those that do not.
“I’m not interested in those people anyway,” Harrison said.
Harrison’s work has caught the interest of several prestigious exhibitions.
He was the recipient of the Donald and Mary Vaughn scholarship through the art department. Last summer, his work was accepted into the Red Clay Survey, a large bi-annual show at the Huntsville Museum of Art that accepts work from artists in the southeast.
Acceptance into the show was very competitive because of the number of qualified applicants, Harrison said.
“I was in the show with lots of older and more successful people who I had never heard of before in my life. Now I know a lot of great artists through that,” Harrison said.
After graduating, he hopes to do freelance photography for advertising, weddings and personal portraits, he said.
“I am not very worried about the economy. I think there is always potential to make money through photography—it just might not be much. I will just have to work harder like everyone else,” Harrison said.
He would like to remain in the southeast for the long term, eventually ending up in New Orleans, he will be traveling to Utah sometime this year to do archeological documentation for the park service, Harrison said.
“Unfortunately, that all depends on when the war is over,” Harrison said.
“The federal government is spending all of the money on war. There is not enough money for field work in the National Park Service and we weren’t talking about a whole lot of money in the first place,” Harrison said.
Harrison’s internship last summer was in the four corners area, where Utah, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico meet.
He photographed old pottery shards, tools and Navajo architecture there.
“I am leaning more towards commercial photography because every state is cutting art funding. The government has demonized modern art and there are basically no substantial grants for artists today,” he said.
According to Harrison, he has learned a lot at The University of Memphis.
“The biggest thing I learned was to try and be quiet and let my photographs speak for themselves,” Harrison said.
