Obscura Gallery: Michael Berman

Michael Berman, Sycamore, 2024

May 17th - June 29th
Obscura Gallery
225 Delgado Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501

Michael P. Berman is no stranger to the Gila Wilderness. Living in Southern New Mexico, photographing in and around the area for years, culminated into the book, Gila (University of New Mexico Press, 2012) with over a 100 of his photographs and essays by the likes of Charles Bowden and many others. Berman is known for wandering the terrain of the American West, Mexico, Norteno and the extensive grasslands of Mongolia. Mr. Berman’s classically executed black and white photographs participate in and extend the tradition of western landscape photography; each body of work is distilled from extensive exploration of a cohesive landscape over time. After completing a series of photographs he then cuts up the negatives and prints and uses them as the basic medium for installations and paintings. The works in this exhibition consist of both traditional black and white prints, alongside Berman’s well-known ‘plates’ in which he uses mixed media on aluminum to combine both his photographs, acrylic, and varnish. In addition he ‘composite’ photographs, all of which he uses from his original images of the Gila to re-create a new visual representation that conjure up the emotional response felt while living and breathing within the Gila Wilderness.

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