Katy Grannan: The Ninety Nine & The Nine

The result of three years of work in California’s Central Valley, Katy Grannan’s new series The Ninety Nine and The Nine features large-scale color portraits and black-and-white photographs. Grannan’s recent photographs are set in the parched landscape and forgotten towns along Highway 99, including Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield. In her intensely vivid color portraits, the artist works at midday when the sun is direct and the heat is unrelenting, presenting each individual, often simultaneously heroic and vulnerable, against stark, white backgrounds. In the black-and-white photographs, many of her subjects re-appear on Modesto’s South 9th Street (referred to as The Nine) and along the banks of the Tuolumne River. Everyday rituals, small interactions and moments of beauty on the fringes of society are depicted in detail, conferring significance to what is often overlooked. This large-format, two-volume, slipcased monograph gathers this series for the first time.