Gretchen LeMaistre grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and is currently based in Northern California. In her research and photographic work, she explores the complex relationships between colonial history, racial injustice, landscape and her own ancestry in the American South. Viewing through a refracted lens of memory and lived experience, LeMaistre probes the disturbing contradictions of mythic allure, systemic racism and runaway development that have put Florida, and much of the United States on its current precarious trajectory.
Stomping Grounds
Her MFA Thesis “Stomping Grounds” is part of an ongoing investigation of colonial history and its legacies in the region of Northeast Florida where Gretchen LeMaistre spent her formative years.
While the phrase “stomping grounds” originally described patches of stamped out vegetation where animals trammeled their habitats, today it is an American colloquialism dating back to the 1820s, indicating well worn, familiar terrain. In this context, LeMaistre employs the phrase literally to reference the legacy of conquest, violence, and erasure involved in the colonial settlement of her hometown in Jacksonville, Florida and its Jim Crow aftermath. In 2020-21, LeMaistre revisited parks and landscapes that were a routine part of her childhood and were also frequented by her ancestors. Many of these places are currently in transition as symbols of white supremacy undergo various stages of civic debate and removal. With her installation, LeMaistre draws uncomfortable relationships between her own heritage, the land and its mute remnants of the past.
