The American artist Kevin Jerome Everson has created a remarkable body of moving image work that co-exists within film and art exhibition contexts. With a sense of place and history, his films, shot primarily on 16mm, combine scripted and documentary moments with touches of formalism. The focus is on craft and duration, and the gestures and tasks caused by certain physical and socio-economic conditions in the lives, labour and leisure of working-class Black Americans and people of African descent. They suggest not only the relentlessness of everyday life but also reveal its inherent beauty.

This selection of four features and 17 short films, together with an 'image booklet' of photographs, has been specifically curated by the artist. Second Run are proud to present the first comprehensive collection to be released on Blu-ray of Everson's award-winning and critically acclaimed films.

This Special Edition 2-disc Blu-ray set includes the following films:

Disc 1 Spicebush (2005) The Island of St. Matthews (2013) Tonsler Park (2017)

Shorts: Fe26 (2014) / Sound That (2014) / Ears, Nose and Throat (2016) Disc 2 Erie (2010)

Shorts: Old Cat (2009) / Company Line (2009) / BZV (2010) Ten Five in the Grass (2012) / Grand Finale (2015) Three Quarters (2015) / Eason (2016) / IFO (2017) Rams 23 Blue Bears 21 (2017) / Polly One (2018) Round Seven (2018) / Union (2019) / Sanfield (2020) Brown Thrasher (2020)

“When I look through the viewfi nder, I’m looking at different histories... I’m responding to a history of a people and a place.” Kevin Jerome Everson

"The American artist Kevin Jerome Everson makes films that hover between close observation and abstraction, politics and poetry [...] To watch Everson’s films is to see cinema’s codes and histories recalibrated. Concrete and oneiric, beguiling in their slowness and quietness, in the luminosity of their materiality – his images invite attunement, a disposition of momentary grace." Elena Gorfinkel, Sight & Sound

“Arguably one of the most prolific, and important experimental filmmakers currently working, is an artist who thinks through the particular problems of cinema by making it.” Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA)

“Everson’s oblique approach prizes his subjects’ dignity over his viewers’ comfort. At a time when weightless spectacle dominates imagery, Everson responds with nuanced gravity.” Megan Ratner, Film Quaterly 

"Kevin Jerome Everson focuses his lens on the people behind the scenes, illuminating the quiet humanity of the everyday." Erin Leland, Cultured Magazine

“Kevin Jerome Everson's work represents a distinct processing of materials, craft , and blackness. [...] Everson approaches film and video as a fine artist; while his work sometimes gives the impression of a documentary conceit, it is moreover mediated by an avant-garde attention to gestures. His work illustrates a refined insistence on the everyday, black people, history, and repetition.” Michael B. Gillespie