Photography professor Dean Kessman featured in The Laurel Magazine

This spring and summer, The Bascom presents the work of Photography Resident Dean Kessmann, on view in the Joel Gallery from April 18 through August 22.

The exhibition, realism succumbing to abstraction or is it the other way around, brings together photographs shaped by decades of conversation with landscape and place, most recently observed through the streets and quiet margins of Washington, DC.
Kessmann, who serves as Professor of Photography at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University, will open the exhibition with a free public artist talk on April 18 at 3:00 P.M.

His practice begins with the simple act of walking. Meaning emerges through attention and through framing moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed.

Anchored in real locations yet resistant to simple description, his photographs exist along a subtle threshold where representation and abstraction exchange roles. Edges dissolve, surfaces flatten, and spatial cues become uncertain, prompting a question that lies at the heart of the project: does photography describe the world, or transform it into something newly perceived?

This balance between poetic intuition and critical reflection has guided Kessmann's work for more than thirty years. He is drawn to what he describes as the "both/and" space, where images can be simultaneously descriptive and enigmatic, grounded and untethered. By elevating overlooked details, he invites viewers into a prolonged act of looking that rewards patience and curiosity.

Now in its tenth year, The Bascom's Photography Artist Residency offers artists something increasingly difficult to come by: uninterrupted time. For Kessmann, who is on sabbatical from his teaching responsibilities this academic year, the timing of the residency is serendipitous. Stepping away for a season from the classroom and the obligations that shape academic life, he is able to work with a level of focus and attention that mirrors the quiet, deliberate nature of his practice.

In Kessmann's work, the familiar becomes quietly transformative, reminding us that the extraordinary is often discovered in the act of paying attention. realism succumbing to abstraction or is it the other way around will be on view in the Joel Gallery at The Bascom from April 18 through August 22. A free public artist talk will take place on April 18 at 3:00 P.M., and a public reception will be held on June 11 at 5:00 P.M.

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