barry underwood

Barry Underwood's large super-saturated color prints are striking at first glance. In fact, a fiction is being created here with light, color, and framing, pulling the viewer into a new, somewhat mythical environment. Issues relating to contemporary painting and film also come into play as the artist considers illusion, imagination, and narrative, the potential of the ordinary transformed into the extraordinary through light and composition. Underwood's surreal photographs are a cross-pollination between static and performing art. The photographs suggest a happening-a secret unnatural moment in the natural world-that the artist has chanced upon and been able to record. When thinking about the genesis of these works, Underwood drew less from the realm of the fantastic and instead looked to his immediate surroundings to draw inspiration, fusing autobiography with fiction.

Barry Underwood received two Bachelor of Arts degrees from Indiana University Northwest, in Theatre and in Photography.   He earned his Masters in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art.   Barry has recently been an artist in residence at the Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Alberta, Canada; I-Park in East Haddam, Connecticut, and the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California . His work has been presented in several international art fairs including Annual International Los Angeles Photographic Art Exposition, Photo Miami 2007, NEXT 2009, and Scope in Basel, Switzerland. Recent exhibitions include Earth Engines a two-person exhibition at Johansson Projects in Oakland, California and Altered Landscape , a two-person exhibition at Summit Gallery , in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Upcoming exhibitions include Staged a group exhibition at Skew Gallery in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in January 2010.   His work is included in several corporate and private collections.  

Barry's work was chosen for a Spotlight award from Color Magazine and will be published in the January 2010 issue. In addition several images will be published in an upcoming article on color photography in the January 03, 2010 issue of the London Times Spectrum magazine .

View CV I Statement I Press I Video I Summer Nights Exhibition Installation

2003