“Landscapes have long been a compelling artistic subject, evolving with cultural and technological advancements, and facilitating emotional and imaginative relationships with our world. Clint Baclawski innovatively presents his large-format photographs of the American landscape by incorporating motion, light, and dramatic compositions. He filters his images through painterly layers of saturated colors. The works’ symmetry, scale, motion, and illumination represent both the natural setting and the awe he felt while spending time in that location.

Baclawski’s Mojave features a burnt Joshua Tree shot during a cross-country road trip he took in 2021, an image that, in his words, is “a haunting emblem of the ongoing climate crisis.” The proportions of the four-panel installation connect the photographic artifact with the completed work of art by retaining the 4x5 orientation of the positive film frame. Baclawski altered the motion mechanisms and lighting of commercial signage often seen in the urban landscape so the four photographs appear as hypnotic, repetitive scrolls. The exposed cords, LED bulbs, and hum of the automation show the outcome of a wildfire, a paradoxical continuum between human-made systems, nature’s cycles, and environmental devastation.

Mojave draws from the rich photographic tradition of American landscape photographers such as Carleton Watkins and Ansel Adams, whose images become iconic representations of the sublime vastness of the American West. Meanwhile, the blurred horizon lines, a grid formation, and repetitive motion cause the surreal and uncanny to reign.”

Shana Dumont Garr, Curator of Special Projects
Leonie Bradbury, Distinguished Curator-in-Residence