Bryan Graf. Field Recordings

The Yancey Richardson Gallery is pleased to present Field Recordings, an exhibition of photographs by Bryan Graf, which marks the first solo show for the artist in the gallery's main exhibition space. The title of the show refers to a term for audio recordings made outside of the studio, sometimes involving the ambient sounds of nature. In this instance it refers to the onsite interactions of photographic materials with a particular place.

The body of work – Wildlife Analysis – was made in the woods and swamps around New Jersey. While photographing these places with black and white film, Graf used unexposed color film to record the direct contact of ambient light flooding onto the film without the use of a lens. Graf then uses the exposed color film as a composite layer in the darkroom. Using these tools he take us on a hallucinatory trip through his native landscape. The images themselves are obstructed by a river of intoxicating hues, blending and shifting as they wash across the prints.

Additionally, a selection of Polaroids, from The Sun Room: Interchanges, B-Sides & Remixes series gives us a glimpse into Graf's studio practice. He refers to these images as "sketches” made in and around his studio, which doubles as a sun room for plants in the spring and summer months. These images are small-scale experiments made over the past four years while he was working on various projects.

Also included in the exhibition is the sculptural piece, An Encyclopedia of Gardening, a collection of gardening encyclopedia covers that were published in 1960, which the artist initially found in his family's archive of gardening manuals. The same image that was used for the front cover was flipped and mirrored for the back cover. Graf then arranged the covers to accentuate the prismatic nature of the collection while contrasting the differences of tone and effects of time on each individual book.

Bryan Graf lives and works in Peak's Island, Maine and New Jersey. He received his M.F.A. from Yale University in 2008 and his B.F.A from the Art Institute of Boston in 2005. His work has appeared in Blind Spot and the New York Times, among other publications.

Bryan Graf
Field Recordings