Mother
2023
Huxley-Parlour gallery is delighted to announce the first UK exhibition by American artist, David Benjamin Sherry. Sherry’s practice examines the mythologies and iconography of the American Midwest, while opening them up as sites for queer potential.
Sherry’s photographic practice bears witness to the changing landscapes of the Western United States. Reinventing the well-trodden views of the country’s national parks, Sherry’s landscapes are each rendered in a single, vivid colour. In doing so, Sherry seeks to challenge the West’s colonialist trope of the individualist, with all its corollary connotations of straightness, whiteness and maleness, to present a more inclusive discourse around the region and its preservation.
Sherry’s photographic practice bears witness to the changing landscapes of the Western United States. Reinventing the well-trodden views of the country’s national parks, Sherry’s landscapes are each rendered in a single, vivid colour. In doing so, Sherry seeks to challenge the West’s colonialist trope of the individualist, with all its corollary connotations of straightness, whiteness and maleness, to present a more inclusive discourse around the region and its preservation.
The landscapes included in Mother are made where the artist resides, in the American West - specifically, California, Utah, and New Mexico. Sites include Yosemite Valley and Joshua Tree and range from the highest mountains of California to the lowest desert on Earth. Sherry’s work traces its roots to his own personal climate grief, as he experiences the loss of entire ecosystems firsthand. He states that he uses photography ‘as a means to see, understand and commune with our sacred landscape in new, provocative ways.’
This exhibition reveals how, through a nuanced interplay of colour, form and scale, Sherry’s work promotes an urgent liberation of ecological and queer potentialities. At a time when reconnection with landscapes and ecosystems may be essential for our continued existence, this exhibition displays how Sherry offers new, empathetic and sublime ways of viewing the natural world.
This exhibition reveals how, through a nuanced interplay of colour, form and scale, Sherry’s work promotes an urgent liberation of ecological and queer potentialities. At a time when reconnection with landscapes and ecosystems may be essential for our continued existence, this exhibition displays how Sherry offers new, empathetic and sublime ways of viewing the natural world.
PHOTOGRAPHS
INSTALLATION
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