Susanna Bluhm: Mississippi & Arizona

Many of us reacted to the 2016 election by crying, binge drinking, and unfriending family members on Facebook. Susanna Bluhm vowed to visit as many so-called "red states" as possible over the next four years to have firsthand experiences in places she only knew through the media. "I'm not trying to have the quintessential experience of each state," says Bluhm, but she's also "not observing from a distance." Mississippi & Arizona is what happens when a queer, white mother who happens to be one of the most sensuous and thoughtful oil painters in the Pacific Northwest seeks out intimate experiences in two places very different from her own.