Sean McFarland: Viewshed
March 12th, 2011 - April 16th, 2011
Baer Ridgway Exhibitions

 

SEAN McFARLAND: VIEWSHED
March 12th - April 16th, 2011

Baer Ridgway Exhibitions is pleased to present a solo exhibition with Sean McFarland: Viewshed, March
12th - April 16th, 2011. Through a disciplined studio practice utilizing unconventional modes of
photography, McFarland continues to investigate the not so often seen vantage points of the Western
landscape. The result of the artist's color photographs, black and white Polaroids, and drawings is a
seemingly humble presentation that unfolds into monumental imagery and ideas that will challenge the
audiences' understanding of both the environment and the photographic media.
Highlighted in this exhibition is McFarland's latest body of work, Dark Pictures: 2008 - present. Within
this series, the nearly black surfaces slowly dissipate when fragments of light are revealed in an
orchestrated composition of color that reaches beyond the surface into an extreme depth of field. The
images often present dense canopies of foliage that lead to uncharted voids creating an irresistible yet
haunting space that encompasses the viewer without invitation or direction, begging the question: do I
dare brave further into the darkness? After this initiation, the viewer uncovers the multitude of
possibilities that lye herein these beautifully cinematic images.

Within the Dark Pictures, McFarland combs through landscapes that exist because of human
conservation. Most of the images are of landscapes maintained to depict their native biotic communities
in close proximity to human development; city parks, open spaces, gardens, the representation of the
natural. Like the word landscape, a viewshed is often implemented for aesthetic reasons, or with an eye
toward natural beauty of the place. A viewshed is much like a screen concealing what one doesn't want
the eye to see: for example, clear-cuts in old-growth forests are often obscured by trees that mask the
devastation behind.

Also presented in this exhibition is an ongoing body of work, Pictures Of The Earth, 2008 - present.
Along with these modest sized black and white Polaroids are several new graphite on paper drawings, all
of which are heavily influenced by the Pictures Of The Earth series.

"This [McFarland's] post-apocalyptic vision simultaneously communicates our desire to return to a wild,
primordial state and our fear of the dark corners of the natural world...McFarland's fantastical landscapes
upend our perception of reality and challenge the authority of the photograph."
-Lisa Sutcliffe, Assistant Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

"Trying to comprehend the array, your eye will move into and out of it with a sort of breathing rhythm. A
single tiny image will seize your attention, then release it into the staccato phrasing of a row or of the
whole ensemble."
-Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle

"...there's a slight feeling of discomfort as McFarland indulges an irresistible fantasy of making urban grit
something we can lord over."
-Glen Helfand, ARTFORUM

Born in Southern California, McFarland currently lives and works in San Francisco. McFarland earned his
under graduate degree from Humboldt State University, and his MFA from California College of the Arts,
San Francisco. McFarland's has received several prestigious awards including the 2011 Eureka Fellowship
from The Fleishhacker Foundation, an invitation to the 2011 Bay Area Now: 6 biennial exhibition at the
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, the 2009 Baum Award for Emerging American
Photographers, the 2009 John Guttman Photography Fellowship, the 2005 Phelan Art Award in
Photography from the San Francisco Foundation and SF Camerawork, the 2004 Fellowship from the
National Photography Institute at Columbia University. In 2010, McFarland was a finalist for the
SFMOMA's Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art Award. McFarland's residencies include
the Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA and the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA (forthcoming,
2011). McFarland's work has exhibited internationally over the past ten years and has been collected by
several public and private collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney
Museum of American Art Library, the Oakland Museum, Humboldt State University, University of California
Davis and Genentech.