Eirik Johnson - PINE

October 19 - December 1, 2018
EIRIK JOHNON - Pine

Artist Talk + Reception
Saturday, October 27, 1pm

Book Signing
Saturday, November 10, 3-5pm

New photographic works by artist Eirik Johnson.

This fall the gallery will host a solo exhibit for Eirik Johnson - his new body of photographic work, PINE, is also the title of his forthcoming publication with Minor Matters. The exhibit will include a combination of color photographs, illuminated light boxes and sound.

The cultural and political climate of the US is at a high point of polarization, when simultaneously there have never been more tools of instantaneous global communication. We’ve never been more connected, and we’ve never been further apart. And so, as social creatures, many people seek community, and a sense of belonging, not only found in companionship and collaboration with others, but in solitary time, and in nature, tuning into ourselves.
Therein lie the origins of Pine. Coming upon a rough tree carving (the words “make out tree, with an arrow guiding the viewer in the correct direction), Johnson made a snapshot, but the moment and the marker stayed with him, and he returned with his 4x5 camera to take it in again, slowly. Over the last few years he has scouted trees of all environs, looking for human traces upon them, and musing on the (often) adolescent emotions and explorations that lead to poignant sentiments recorded within a living surface.

• Minor Matters Books, 2018

Eirik Johnson (b. Seattle, WA, 1974; resides in Seattle) has received numerous awards including the 2012 Neddy at Cornish Award in Open Medium (for what became this series), a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in 2009, the Santa Fe Prize in 2005, and a William J. Fulbright Grant to Peru in 2000. His work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, among others. He is the author of two previous mongraphs: Borderlands (Twin Palms, 2005) and Sawdust Mountain (Aperture, 2009). He is the Programs Chair at Photographic Center Northwest, and also serves as affiliate faculty at the University of Washington, of which he is an alum.

For additional information and press images, please contact us.