Michael Gaillard: 15 Years - Nantucket Exhibition 2022

MICHAEL GAILLARD: 15 Years of Nantucket Landscapes

Summer 2022 Nantucket gallery

MICHAEL GAILLARD American, b. 1979 In his photography, Michael Gaillard seeks to reproduce the atmosphere, the air, and the ineffable yet essential qualities of a bveing in a place rather than focusing on reproducing iconic depictions that constitute the collective knowledge of those places. Michael Gaillard was introduced to large-format photography at Stanford University (BA, 2003) and furthered his studies at Columbia University (MFA, 2010). His work rose to prominence on Nantucket, where he has been exhibiting for over a decade. Gaillard’s unique perspective on the Nantucket landscape has inspired an extensive and devoted collector base. It has also led many of his collectors to commission photographic excursions to exotic locations like Hawaii. His work hovers between representation and abstraction, conveying the character of the space depicted while allowing this view to function independently as color and form. Drawing parallels to 19th

century landscape painting traditions, color field painting, and the New Topographics photography movement, these landscapes manifest a hybrid that oscillates between grandiose specificity and calculated abstraction. A native of Nantucket and a graduate of Nantucket High School, Michael studied photography at and received his BA from Stanford University and his MFA in visual arts from Columbia University. During the winter he lives in Brooklyn, NY and travels the world fulfilling artistic commissions for his clients. In order to achieve the scale and clarity evidenced in his images, Gaillard uses an 8 x 10 film camera for his landscape work. He uses the same type of camera employed by Walker Evans, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams. Gaillard then uses a drum scanner which is the highest-quality digitization technology. Finally, he converts the image to a digital file from which the final print is made in his Brooklyn studio.

Atlantic Bound