Silver Eye

Radial Survey is Silver Eye’s flagship biennial exhibition, showcasing compelling new artistic voices from within 300 miles of Pittsburgh. This fourth edition features six innovative artists nominated by Radial Survey Vol.3 artists and selected by Silver Eye’s curators:

Amelia Burns (Detroit)
McNair Evans (Richmond)
Christine Lorenz (Pittsburgh)
Juan Orrantia (Rochester)
Ian John Solomon (Detroit)
SHAN Wallace (Baltimore)

Through varied approaches, these artists develop dynamic visual languages that question photography’s conventions and redefine its purpose on their own terms. Together, all six artists boldly reimagine the future of photography through urgent, experimental work that deeply resonates with our contemporary moment.

Radial Survey Vol.4 is accompanied by an extensive catalog featuring original essays Tara Fay Coleman, Jessica Lynne, Matthew Newton, Silver Eye Executive Director Leo Hsu, and Deputy Director & Director of Programs Helen Trompeteler.

Support Radial Survey

Your support brings Radial Survey to life. Help us amplify new voices and explore what it means to make art in the Radius. Become a patron or sponsor by September 5 to be recognized in the catalog.

Support Radial Survey and amplify bold new voices in photography

Our Patrons & Sponsors

Radial Survey Vol.4 is made possible by The Philip and Edith Leonian Foundation, and by our patrons and supporters.

The Radial Survey Vol.4 catalog is made possible by Colleen and Henry Simonds.

Presenting Sponsor: ARTPOWER

Supporting Sponsors: Laura Heberton-Schlomchik and Mark Schlomchik, Andi Irwin and Brian Wongchaowart

Contributing Sponsors: Susan Abramson, Concept Art Gallery, Duolingo, Chris and Dawn Fleischner, Christine Holtz and David Scott, Lea Simonds

Premier Patrons: Matthew Conboy and Heather Pinson, Liz Dewar and Helen Trompeteler, Raminder Hansra and Harinder Singh, Evan Mirapaul and Sybil Streeter, Tomayko Foundation

Supporting Patrons: Annabelle Javier and Jason Wilburn, Terry Irwin and Gideon Kossoff, Melissa McSwigan and Robert Raczka, Milena Nigam and Kamal Nigam, Anna Radder

Food and drink sponsored by Sprezzatura Two Frays Brewery

Participating Artists

1. Amelia Burns is a photographer and collage artist whose work navigates the cultural and physical landscapes of the U.S. A Pratt Institute BFA (2005) and Cranbrook Academy of Art MFA (2023) graduate, she has traveled through nearly every state, documenting the interplay between nature and human impact. Her images, whether photographic or collage-based, merge beauty, humor, pain, and solitude, transforming cultural fragments into vignettes of resilience. Drawing from the mysticism of her Irish Catholic upbringing and critiques of capitalism, Burns explores the tension between authenticity and artifice, creating visceral portraits of contemporary Americana’s darkness, endurance, and quiet resistance.

2. McNair Evans is a nationally exhibiting artist represented by galleries in San Francisco, CA and Asheville, NC, an active guest lecturer, and working photographer. His projects explore themes of shared experiences and identity, and are recognized for their literary character and metaphoric use of light. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, the Innovation in Documentary Arts Award from Duke University, and the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship. His books and prints are held in public and private collections including the SFMOMA, UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

3. Christine Lorenz uses the tools of macro photography to explore the ways we find meaning in materials. She holds an MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a BA from The Ohio State University. Her photographs have been exhibited at photo-eye gallery, Santa Fe; PEP, Berlin; and the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. Her work has been featured by Lenscratch, Photolucida, Refract Journal, Der Greif, and Fraction Magazine. Collections include the Community College of Allegheny County and the Tomayko Foundation. In 2025 she was a Gilbert Fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She teaches the history of photography and art writing at Duquesne University and Point Park University.

4. Juan Orrantia is a Colombian photographer who spent much of his adult life in South Africa. Rooted in experiences of dislocation and postcoloniality, his practice unsettles histories of vision and representation through color, appropriation, intervention, and printed media. Juan's first book Like Stains of Red Dirt (Dalpine 2020) was winner of the Fiebre Dummy Award. He has also published A Machete Pelao (Cdf 2022), winner of the Fotolibro Latinoamericano Centro de Fotografia de Montevideo, and O, a companion to A Machete Pelao--as part of AñZ-Fotografia Expandida en Latinoamérica (Raya editorial, 2024). He is Assistant Professor of Fine Art Photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and holds an MFA in Photography from Hartford Art School.

5. Ian John Solomon is a Detroit-based interdisciplinary artist-journalist whose lens-based practice explores self, ancestry, community, land, and ecology. Deeply motivated by the environment, his work engages the natural world as a foundation for personal and communal transformation and urgent conversations spanning the spiritual to the political. He hosts PBS-Great Lakes Now’s Ian Outside and founded Amplify Outside, connecting Black Midwesterners to nature through art and social practice. Ian has exhibited across the Midwest and received honors including a 2025 BMI Fellowship, 2024 Playground Detroit Fellowship, an Emmy Award, and recognition in environmental reporting. He earned his MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2024.

6. SHAN Wallace is a nomadic, award-winning interdisciplinary artist, archivist, and image-maker from Baltimore, MD. Her practice weaves narratives through photography, film, collage, and in situ installations, using these mediums to imagine new stories rooted in everyday life and history. Wallace has exhibited internationally at institutions including The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Annenberg Space for Photography, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, and The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts. Her work is held in collections such as The Whitney Museum, The Baltimore Museum of Art, and Johns Hopkins University. Wallace lives and works in many spaces between Brooklyn, New York and Baltimore.