Artist Bio

Rebecca Sexton Larson (b. 1959) is a multidisciplinary artist living in Paint Lick, Kentucky. She holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Fine Art Painting and Photojournalism from the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Larson’s work incorporates hand-painted and stitched photographs to examine memory, identity, and family. Her personal, story-driven approach investigates the overlap between fact and memory, illuminating stories that are forgotten, concealed, or only partially understood.

She has received numerous honors for her work, including Florida Individual Artist Fellowships in 1998, 2002, and 2008, along with an Artist Enhancement Grant from the State of Florida in 2006. In 2005, she was named the City of Tampa’s Photographer Laureate, during which she documented the city using a pinhole camera. Most recently, Larson was selected as a 2025 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 finalist.

Her photographs have been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Notable venues include CoExist Galleries & Studios (Essex, U.K.), the University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA), the Palace of the Governors (Santa Fe, NM), and the Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, FL). Her work was also included in The Polaroid Project, which was presented at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth, TX), WestLicht Museum for Photography (Vienna), C/O Berlin (Berlin), and the MIT Museum (Cambridge, MA). Larson’s work is held in both private and public collections.

Artist Statement

“As a visual storyteller, I create work that merges photography, archival family images, and hand-stitching to explore memory, identity, and caregiving. Each photograph is hand-colored with watercolor, a deliberate process that invites slowness, attention, and reflection. Printed on translucent Japanese Kozo paper, the images allow for layering and permeability, mirroring the fluid boundaries between past and present, presence and absence. Through these gestures, I engage the emotional and material weight of the photograph, transforming it into a tactile expression of care, loss, and remembrance.

Now living in Kentucky, I find an ongoing dialogue between the landscape and the layered histories embedded within these images. Hand-coloring, stitching, and writing directly onto the surface become acts of mending—ways of reinterpreting, holding, and tending to what has been inherited. Each mark, whether threaded or written, serves as both evidence and meditation. Through this practice, I seek to preserve the emotional complexity of family relationships while giving form to what remains unresolved. The work ultimately becomes a reconstruction of memory: an act of tenderness, inquiry, and quiet repair.”

Brief Resume

  • 2025 Photolucida 2025 Critical Mass Top 50

    2023Professional Development Artists Grant, Arts Council Hillsborough County

    2018 Professional Development Artists Grant, Arts Council Hillsborough County

    Creative Capital Professional Development Program, Winter Park, FL

    2014 Creative Capital Professional Development Program, Tampa, FL

    2009 Artist Enhancement Grant, Arts Council Hillsborough County

    2008 Florida Individual Artist Fellowship

    2006 Florida Artist Enhancement Grant

    2005 Photographer Laureate, City of Tampa

    2002 Florida Individual Artist Fellowship

    1999 Featured artist for Polaroid Corporation “Test” Online

    1998 Florida Individual Artist Fellowship

    1995 Emerging Artist Grant, Tampa-Hillsborough Arts Council

    1990 Emerging Artist Grant, Tampa-Hillsborough Arts Council

  • Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL 

    Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL

    Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art

    Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art 

    Palace of the Governors, New Mexico

    Polaroid International, Boston, MA

    Progressive Corporate Art, Mayfield Village, OH

    Graham Nash, Nash Editions/Crosby, Stills & Nash

    The Pinhole Resource, San Lorenzo, NM

    PharMerica, Inc., Tampa, FL

    Holland and Knight Law Firm, Tampa, FL

    City of Orlando, Florida, Artists Collection, FL

    Coopers & Lybrand, Tampa, FL

    Arthur Anderson, Tampa, FL

    First Fidelity Investments, Tampa, FL

    Hillsborough County Commission, County Building, Tampa, FL

    Chamber of Commerce, Tampa, FL

    South Trust Bank, Orlando, FL

    Thermal Ceramics, Augusta, GA

    Orlando County Commission, Orlando, FL

    Amsouth Bank, Tampa, FL

    TECO Reality, Tampa, FL

    Tampa Bay Business Committee of the Arts 2004

    Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA

    Frank Konhaus, Cassilhaus, Chapel Hill, NC

    Rick Mears, 4-time Indianapolis 500 Champion, Jupiter, FL

  • 2026 Where Leaves Remember, Morean Art Center, St. Petersburg, FL

    Critical Mass Top 50 Exhibition, Blue Sky Gallery Portland OR

    2025 Tall Tales, curated by Greg Banks and Addison Brown. The barn located at Split Oak Farm, 

    Zebulon, GA

    The SlowExposures Juried Exhibition, jurors Amanda Smith, Erin Dunn, Zebulon, GA

    Critical Mass Top 50 Exhibition, Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

    2024 The Paula Tognarelli Collection, Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Portland, Maine

    Words and Pictures, Center for Fine Art Photography - online exhibition (Aline Smithson)

    2023    The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art Technology, Fundación Barrié in La Coruña, Spain 

    PhotoNola Review Exhibition, Photographic Gallery, San Miquel de Allende, Mexico

    29th Annual Online Members Exhibition, Griffin Museum of Art

    Hold Up Half the Sky Photographs by Women, Dallas Center for Photography

    Center Forward 2023 Online Exhibition, Fort Collins, CO. (Charles Guice)

    Small Things Considered, Arts on Douglas, New Smyrna Beach

    Beyond the Horizon, from the Cassilhaus Collection, Chapel Hill, NC

    2022 Hambidge Creative Residency Program, exhibit Manmade Cloud, Rabun Gap, GA

    The Curated Fridge 2022 exhibit (Aline Smithson)

    Playback Theatre, Arts on Douglas, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL 

    N.Y. Photo Curator-Personal Cosmologies

    2021 Rebecca Sexton Larson, Southeast Center for Photography, Greenville, SC (solo)

    How to Build a Manmade Cloud, Dunedin Fine Art Center, Dunedin, FL (solo)

    30 over 50 |In Context, Ctr. for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO. (Arnika Dawkins)

    2020 Picture in Picture, from the Cassilhaus Collection, Chapel Hill, NC  (Frank Konhaus)

    Photoville, Fence Installation Sarasota, FL

      THE ALTERED IMAGE Women Telling Stories Combining  Photography with Mixed Media, Dina 

    Mitrani Gallery, Miami, FL

    Unbound9 Invitational, Candela Books + Gallery, Richmond, VA  (Gordon Stettinius)

    41st Annual Paper in Particular, Sidney Larson Gallery, Columbia College, MO  (Scott McMahon)

    International Juried Exhibition, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA (Paula Tognarelli) 

    2019 A Certain Uncertainty from the Cassilhaus Collection, Horce Williams House, Chapel Hill, NC  

      (Lori Vrba and Tama Hochbaum)

    Idioms: Photographs by Rebecca Sexton Larson, Florida School of the Arts, (solo)

    The Polaroid Project: At the Intersection of Art and Technology McCord Museum, Montreal

    New Blood:  Recent Discoveries from the Cassilhaus Collection, NC (Frank  and Ellen Konhaus)

    Southeast Center for Photography, SE Center Open, Greenville, SC (Richard Tuschman)

    2018 City of Tampa Photographer Laureates, Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Tampa,

    2017 Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of Art (formerly the Polk Museum of Art),

    Permanent Collection Exhibition, Lakeland, FL

    Skyway A Contemporary Collaboration, Tampa Museum of Art  

    Light Sensitive 2015: Celebrating Images from the Darkroom Art Intersection, AZ  (Ann  Jastrab)

    Poetics of Light, National Media Museum, United Kingdom

      The Polaroid Project, Curated by William Ewing, Barbara Hitchcock, Gary  Van Zante, Deborah G. Douglas, and Rebekka Reuter.  Venues include the Amon Carter Museum of American 

    Art, Ft. Worth, TX, WestLicht Museum for Photography, Vienna, C/O Berlin, Berlin

    MIT Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts

    2016 Remnants, LightBox Photographic Gallery, Astoria, OR (Kaden Kratzer and Nadezda Nikolova)  

    Unmanned: Women Artists from the Permanent Collection, Polk Museum of Art

    Unbound5 Invitational Candela Books + Gallery, Richmond, VA  (Gordon Stettinius)

    Altered Narratives: 19th Century Techniques Merge with 21 Century Visions, City Gallery at 

    Waterfront  Park, Charleston, SC

    2015 Three Person exhibition (Jonah Calinawan, Karen Hymer, and Rebecca Sexton Larson),  

    Art Intersection, Gilbert, AZ

    Diffusion Exhibition, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO

    Light Sensitive 2015: Celebrating Images from the Darkroom Art Intersection, AZ (Robert Hirsch)

    2014  Rebecca Sexton Larson and Matt Larson, “An Alternative Mood.”

    “Poetics of Light” Contemporary pinhole photography, Palace of the  Governors, New Mexico,

       (Eric Renner and Nancy Spencer)

    HANDMADE, Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro, VT. (Jessica Ferguson)

    Light Sensitive 2014, Art Intersection, Gilbert, AZ.  (Tom Persinger)

    2012 'Pinhole Photography” Atlantic Center for the Arts - Harris House, New Smyrna Beach

    “Alternative Views” Red Filter Fine Art Photography Gallery, Lambertville, NJ

      In One Instant Gallery of Photography, Ft. Myers, FL

    2011 Transferred/Alternative Processes in Photography, Target Gallery at the Torpedo  Factory Art 

    Center, VA (Regina DeLuis)

    Florida Museum of Women Artists, Biennial Exhibition DeLand, FL

    2010 Low Tech The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO (Crista Dix)

    Push>Process, CoExist Galleries & Studios @ TAP The Old Water Works, Southend on Sea, 

    Essex, U.K. (Emma Emmerton and Nastassja Simensky)

    Florida Biennial III, the Deland Museum of Art, (Mark Ormond)

    2009 Visual Unity, Morean Art Center, St. Petersburg, FL

    2008 "React," C. Emerson Fine Art, St. Petersburg, FL

    2007 Rebecca Sexton Larson, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA  

    Small Works Exhibit, Clayton Galleries, Tampa, FL

    2006 Photographer Laureate Exhibition, University of Tampa, Tampa, FL (solo)

    Artwork by Rebecca Sexton Larson and Anna Tomczak, Lake Wales Art Center, FL

    The Narrative Tradition, the Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL

    Rethinking the Possibilities: Rebecca Sexton Larson, Ashley Gibson Barnett Museum of 

    Art (formerly the Polk Museum of Art), Lakeland, FL

    2005 Pinhole Photography Group Show, the Upstairs Gallery, Tyron, NC

    2004 Fixed in Time: Matt Larson & Rebecca Sexton Larson, the Arts Center,  St. Petersburg

    2003 Pure Light: Southern Pinhole Photography, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-

    Salem, NC  

    Florida Individual Artist Fellowship Traveling Exhibition, various Florida museums

    2002 Boca Raton Museum Show, Boca Raton Museum, Boca Raton, FL

    Float, online magazine feature "Book of Fears", November issue

    2001 Why Pinhole? International Exhibition of Lens-less Images, The Visual Studies Workshop,  NY

    Images from the Permanent Collection, the Tampa Museum of Art, 

    2000 Larson & Tomczak, Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL

    1999 Nostalgic Glances, Museum of Arts and Science, Melbourne, FL

    Undercurrent/Overview, the Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL

  • Chief Curator, Art and History Museums, Maitland, FL

    Associate Curator, Leepa Rattner Museum, Tarpon Springs, FL

    Gainesville Downtown Festival Art Show

    Fine Arts for Ocala Art Festival, Ocala FL

    Tarpon Springs Fine Arts Festival

    Southeast Center for Photography Greenville SC

    Images Festival of the Arts, New Smyrna Beach FL

    Art Harvest, Dunedin FL

    Crealde Student Exhibition, Winter Park FL

    Maitland Rotary's Annual Art Fair, Maitland FL

    Suncoast Arts Festival, Wesley Chapel, FL

    Creative Loafing Photo Competition Tampa, FL

    Pre-jury Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, Tampa FL

    Pre-jury Mayfaire Art Festival, Lakeland FLItem description

  • 1982 University of South Florida, Tampa, FL - BA Fine Arts (Painting)

    1982 University of South Florida, Tampa, FL - BA Mass Communications (Photojournalism)

    Selected coursework George Eastman House, Rochester, NY