Raised and educated in Atlanta, Chris Verene found his voice in the late 1980s on the city’s bohemian gender-bending scene. Verene exhibited photographs and appeared in other guises: as a drummer with the Rock*A*Teens and a drag performance artist. “From Galesburg to Atlanta, 1986–2004,” organized by the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, showed that his sensibility as a photographer is rooted in performance.

Verene’s photographs from the mid-’90s to the present in which he portrays Cheri Nevers, his female alter ego, and “The Baptism Series,” 2002 (produced in collaboration with Christian Holstad),