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Victoria Sambunaris creates large-scale photographs of the American West that examine the intersections of modern civilization and the natural environment. Inspired by the intrepid nineteenth century photographers whose work helped to define our understanding of the region, Sambunaris embarks upon an extended, solitary road trip each year, capturing the American landscape with a large format, five-by-seven wooden field camera. Highly detailed and carefully composed, the resulting photographs present a visually refined portrait of a vast industrial terrain embedded within the high desert, grassy plains and estuarial corridors of the country.
From 2009 to 2011, Sambunaris covered the two thousand mile extent of the border between the United States and Mexico in an attempt to understand the essence of the border culture and the divided landscape. A later project involved photographing the infrastructure and ecological implications of the energy industry in South Texas, and for her most recent project, from 2016-2018, Sambunaris focused her attention on the development, commerce and geology throughout Utah. Combining in-depth planning and research with a laborious mode of shooting and developing, sometimes waiting days for the right conditions, Sambunaris’ photographs communicate a deeply layered sense of place and a nuanced view of the complex issues surrounding American land use and management. -
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Victoria SambunarisUntitled (The Bowl in Bahia Grande), Brownsville, Texas, 2015Chromogenic Print30 x 84 inchesEdition of 5 + 2 APs$15,000.00
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Victoria Sambunaris was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1964, and lives and works in New York. She received a BA from Mount Vernon College in 1986 and an MFA from Yale University School of Art in 1999, where she has since held various teaching positions. She is the receipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Award and an Aaron Siskind Foundation Fellowship Grant. In 2011, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery presented a mid-career retrospective of her work which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago and the Nevada Museum of Art. From October 30, 2020 - May 1, 2021, the Brigham Young University Museum of Art will present Far Out: The West Re-Seen, a major restrospective of Sambunaris' work bringing together over forty works from throughout her career.
Sambunaris' work can be seen in numerous public collections throughout the United States, including those of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her monograph, Taxonomy of a Landscape, published by Radius Books, presents a ten year survey of her work.
Victoria Sambunaris
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