For a Pennsylvania-raised artist who went to NYU as an undergrad and then to Yale for an MFA, it’s somewhat surprising that Sam Contis has tapped into the mythos of the American West so thoroughly and imaginatively. In two major February exhibitions and a concurrent book release, Contis is demonstrating her ability to re-envision what we know about the land of wide-open spaces, rugged individualism and traditional gender roles. In the process, she shows how photography is an even more flexible medium than we thought. Whether she’s taking the pictures herself or using someone else’s images as raw material, her touch is finely calibrated and undergirded by a warmth sometimes missing in contemporary art. Read More