Untitled, from the series Meadow, Carlisle, Massachusetts

Artwork Description

Bosworth does not always photograph the landscapes we have been led to expect; instead we see charred timber; a highway underpass alight with birds; a hiker's lookout surveying an interchange. These are not images of a remote wilderness secluded from contact, yet we are still surrounded by the pleasures of the natural world: a cold river skimmed by the palm of the hand or the pulsing rush of a waterfall. Her photographs are peopled with tourists, friends, family, and sometimes the artist herself: "As a photographer I am interested not just in the terrain but in the ways we interact with our environment. I began to make panoramic photographs as a way to impart a greater sense of the land, to convey the experience of being surrounded by the landscape."

The large-scale color prints from the series Meadow were all made within a space of several acres just outside suburban Boston. Photographed along the intersection of manicured fields and rough brush and bramble, the meadow is home to blackberries and wild roses, nesting birds, fireflies, coyotes, and an occasional black bear. We watch as the sunlight angles and shifts through each season, and the dense growth of the meadow opens and closes around this compact and intimate world.

Earth and Sky: Photographs by Barbara Bosworth exhibition label