Tom Bamberger: Views
through June 4
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These prints are so rich it seems there’s more detail in each millimeter than the naked eye can see. The pumpkins in one photo lie in clusters in the field, their globular forms bumping up against each other. In the desert of another, cacti and desert brushes create repeating designs against the lighter, sun-blanched soil; low-lying houses in the background also seem to echo one another. The fissures in the flat and almost lifeless desert of another landscape seem locked in a kind of tension. Without seeming the least bit mystical, these photos suggest that landscape patterns are hardly random–that each scene is the manifestation of unseen forces. The Wisconsin landscape in a fourth photo–empty fields dotted with clumps of trees and a few houses–distantly recalls the Hudson River school: human construction is dwarfed by nature. Houses, trees, and fields don’t appear to be arranged according to any particular plan, yet the trees seem to caress the houses, pressing in on them; the trees hem in and demarcate the fields; and the fields themselves, alive with texture, seem almost sentient.
Lots of bad artists are able to achieve a consistent look, offering repetitive, self-enclosed worlds. But the visual tensions Bamberger creates within each picture are echoed by a larger tension between his photos–between the look common to each and the diverse landscapes. He gives us a version of a classic paradox: does the “world out there” have any existence separate from our subjective impressions of it? Bamberger’s coalescing surfaces suggest that a single force unites them, yet the visual differences between the images remain strong: the work is animated by a conflict between his inner vision and the outward reality of the scenes he captures.
