Highway 62 #3
2024 |
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Bill Leigh Brewer
Bill Leigh Brewer in the field.
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With my camera, I document my experience of a place and a time, working to convey the feeling(s) of that specific moment, however elusive. Drawn to landscapes for their pure aesthetic beauty, I then look for the added layer of narrative interest left by people—the marks they make, the evidence of their presence. Even though such traces may carry historical or political importance, I’m most interested in their emotional subjectivity—the ways a scene resonates on a profoundly personal level. Beauty felt, not defined.
“Proof of Life,” the title of this exhibition and my recently-released first book, explores this concept as I’ve lived in and explored the Southwest. As an artist, I embrace the mechanics of the medium I chose decades ago; when I embarked on this journey in the 1980s, the technical terrain was vastly different than today. So much of my current work has been made possible by digital photography (advances in techniques such as dynamic range, the ability to hold detail in highlights and shadows, nocturnes, panoramic stitching). And yet, then as now, I remain ever enthralled by photography as the glorious rendering of detail. Born in California, Bill makes his home in the California high desert. Photography has taken him from Los Angeles to New York, as well as Malaysia, Nova Scotia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Europe, and his primary focus, the American Southwest. He received a graduate degree from USC. He taught photography at Long Beach City College, where he is a member their Photography Advisory Committee. Bill is a recipient of a Donaldson Trust Fellowship, a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center. He was named the Epson International Pano Photographer of the Year in 2010. Bill recently published his first book, Proof of Life. Designed by Tony Pinto, the book documents Bill’s experience of the Southwest landscape and the marks people leave on it. |