Exhibition Dynamic Duos Features 7 Collabs Between Photographers and Visual Artists

There’s a certain profound beauty found in the intersection of two mediums. It took a blistering performance from the Talking Heads combined with Jonathan Demme’s auteurist eye behind the camera to create Stop Making Sense. The Sistine Chapel could only become Michelangelo’s canvas after the work of architects Baccio Pontelli and Giovanni di Pietro da Dolci.

On a far smaller scale, Andrew Sherman is well aware of this dichotomy. The well-known DFW photographer is set to debut Dynamic Duos, a curated exhibition that pairs photographers and visual artists in a series of pieces.

Dynamic Duos features seven collaborations and will be displayed at Deep Ellum Art Company. It opened on Tuesday, Jan. 21, with a reception and will remain displayed in the venue for the next two months.

Each collaboration is between a local photographer and visual artist, working together in a process that typically begins with the photographer choosing a photo or set of photos and the visual artist adding or overlaying new designs.

The pairings (photographer, artist) are Andrew Sherman and Amy Sherman; Jessica Waffles and James B Maker; Sergio Zuniga and Carissa Nalley; Madison Truscan and Sophi Johnson; Maia Tharp and Kitte Crsitobal; Jason Janik and Cabe Booth; and Jasmine Balalau-Rakwitz and Richard Ross.

The exhibition marks Sherman’s third curation with the venue, all appearing annually in January. Past exhibits featured exclusively concert photography from local legends like Mike Brooks and Vera Hernandez.

“I wanted my wife’s art on the wall,” Sherman says of his bride, Amy. “How can I do a show that incorporates photography and art? This is what I came up with.”

Sherman shared his archives with his wife, who paired photos of Reunion Tower, the Traveling Man sculpture in Deep Ellum and flames taken at a Burning Man-like exhibit and used the photos to create new works of art.

“We did a whole day of collaboration on the photo process,” he says. “It turned out like a collage.”

The finished product, named “Disaster Bot,” is a playful yet menacing portrait of the robot either engulfed by or creating the wall of flames, depending on your interpretation.

It was a fun experiment for the couple, who later created “Statue of Limitations,” an enhanced photo that Sherman took of the now-defunct Women’s History Museum inside Fair Park.

The exhibition’s other couple, Jessica Waffles and James B. Maker, went above and beyond to make their pieces wholly unique and immersive. Starting with a printed photo from Waffles, the couple added colorful, psychedelic with acrylic paint inside of 3D-printed frames. On top of that, each of their 10 pieces is directly inspired by a song and offers a QR code to a Spotify playlist where viewers can listen along and pair the sounds and sights.
“There was no overall theme other than collaboration,” Sherman says. “They took it to another level.”

Waffles and Maker have named their pieces “The Inertia Collection.”

“In a dance between stillness and motion, The Inertia Collection is a visual meditation on transformation,” the couple said in a statement. “Beauty reveals itself through disruption, adaptation and resilience.”

All pieces are for sale at Dynamic Duos, but Sherman assures that the exhibition won’t have “typical art gallery prices.”

Dynamic Duos opened on Jan. 21.