Stacy Kranitz is a photographer and filmmaker based in the Appalachian Mountain region of Eastern Tennessee. Working within the tradition of documentary photography, Kranitz confronts the complexities and limitations of the medium — specifically its failure to represent without subjectifying. Examining the collision between identity and environment, Kranitz photographs people and scenes in her surrounding community with careful consideration and critique of her role as both participant and observer. Says Kranitz, “my work is my life...it is my way of engaging with the world.” The artist’s work is a raw, stunning portrait of a time and place that blurs the lines between documentation and fantasy and calls into question our own preconceptions.
Kranitz was born in Kentucky. She received a BA from New York University and an MFA from UC Irvine. The artist is a current Guggenheim Fellow. Her work appears in collections at the Harvard Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Art in Houston. She is the recipient of several awards and grants including Time Magazine Instagram Photographer of the Year (2015).
Kranitz’s work has been featured in TIME, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Oxford American, Le Monde, VICE, Vanity Fair, and Harpers. Her most recent series, an archive of photographs and ephemera collected over a ten-year span in central Appalachia titled As It Was Give(n) to Me, will be published as a monograph by Twin Palms in 2021.
