Jay Turner Frey Seawell: National Trust

Jay Turner Frey Seawell is a photographer based in Washington DC. His work has been exhibited in the United States and in China at the Pingyao International Photography Festival. A nominee of 2014 Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers, Seawell has spent some time photographing the political scene in DC.

His series “National Trust” documents visitors of the Lincoln Memorial and the behind the scenes of the so-called “political circus.” Sewell consciously create compositions that allow us to take a peek behind what’s going on behind the curtain. There is an absurd, dark drama in his images: figures of seemingly important individuals in suits, awkward tourist and the visually uncomfortable passerby – they all contort and bend in ways that make us question the relationship between the populous and the politicians.   Seawell’s “pictures also call attention to the enduring role that surface appearances play in the telling and retelling of history.”