photography in all its forms

New York, New York

Sawdust Mountain
Photographs by Eirik Johnson

Opening reception with the Artist:
Thursday, April 15, 2010, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm

Exhibition on view:
Friday, April 16, 2010 –Thursday, June 3, 2010

FREE

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Curated by Elizabeth Brown, Chief Curator, Henry Art Gallery

A culmination of four years photographing throughout Oregon, Washington, and Northern California, Eirik Johnson's Sawdust Mountain—the exhibition and accompanying book—focus on the tenuous relationship between industries reliant upon natural resources and the communities they support. Timber and salmon are the bedrock of a regional Northwest identity, but the environmental impact of these industries has been increasingly at odds with the contemporary ideal of sustainability. In this, his second book, Eirik Johnson reveals a landscape imbued with an uncertain future—no longer the region of boomtowns built upon the riches of massive old growth forests.

Johnson, a Seattle native, describes his photographs as "a melancholy love letter of sorts, my own personal ramblings." Through this poetic approach, Sawdust Mountain records a region affected by historic economic complexities and, by extension, aspects of our fraught relationship with the environment in the twenty-first century.

Sawdust Mountain had its debut at The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, on October 24, 2010 where it remains on view through January 31, 2010.

Eirik Johnson (born in Seattle, 1974) is an assistant professor of photography at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, George Eastman House, and Aperture Gallery. His first book, Borderlands, was awarded the Santa Fe Prize for Photography in 2005.

Sawdust Mountain is made possible, in part, by the generous support of The Turner Foundation, Inc. This exhibition is supported by ArtsFund, PONCHO, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and Patrons of the Henry Art Gallery.