Noah Wilson - A Lonely Hunter

A Lonely Hunter

Univeristy Art Gallery Department of Art School of the Arts California State University, Stanislaus

300 copies printed

NOAH WILSON, A LONERLY HUNTER

January 25 - February 26, 2016

University Art Gallery

Department of Art

School of the Arts

California State University, Stanislaus

One University Circle

Turlock, CA 95382

This exhibition and catalog have been funded by:

Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus

Copyright © 2016 California State University, Stanislaus

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

Catalog design: Brad Peatross, School of the Arts, California State University, Stanislaus

Catalog printing: Claremont Print, Claremont, CA

Catalog photography: Courtesy of the artist.

Photographs included are used under the permission of the artist.

ISBN: 978-1-940753-16-4

DIRECTOR’S FOREWORD

Noah Wilson’s A Lonely Hunter represents a chance to view his brilliant work. Taken from a few different bodies of work, this exhibition showcases his dynamic understanding of photography. In addition to his being a successful professional artist, Wilson is also a wonderful, devoted teacher of other artists.

A few years ago, the University Art Gallery’s exhibition titled Close to Home featured the work of the faculty of Merced College and Modesto Junior College. Through this joint exhibition a new program of solo exhibitions of our colleagues was created. Wilson is one of our colleagues from Modesto Junior College.

I would like to thank the many colleagues who have been instrumental in presenting this exhibition: Noah Wilson for the chance of exhibiting his amazing work; the School of the Arts, California State University, Stanislaus for the catalog design; and Claremont Print and Copy for the printing this catalog.

Much gratitude is also extended to the Instructionally Related Activities Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalogue. Their support is greatly appreciated.

Dean De Cocker,

Director, University Art Gallery

California State University, Stanislaus

A Lonely Hunter

In 1859, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly in which he compared the photographer to a hunter. He described the act of photographing as skinning the land and suggested that photographers return from distant travels with imagery akin to pelts representing the places they’ve seen. Skinning the land was not an unsavory analogy for Holmes, who was an aficionado of the medium and, himself, devoured these never-before-seen images of far-away places. At one point in the article, however, Holmes offers a wry and cautionary suggestion that experiencing the world through pictures could make the appearance of a place paramount, and matter, or rather the true substance of a place, cheap and of little consequence.

Making a photograph is an act that at once offers access and creates an abstraction, somewhat like how a pelt is similar to an animal but not an animal at all. Photographs translate the natural world, and I’m curious about what is created as well as what is lost through that translation.

Some of the pictures in this exhibition draw from Youtube, a medium that has become such a vast and ubiquitous source of both information and misinformation. Using it to explore other people’s experiences in nature, I’m fascinated by the strange and antithetical senses of connection and separation that arise from viewing the world through a machine. Other photographs in this project search my own experiences with the natural world, including how it affects what I would consider my domestic life. My pictures describe how I look at nature through videos, walks in the woods, books, what I eat, photographs, and through the eyes of my children. I’m looking at the relationships and distances between me and this world and questioning how I live a life inextricably tied to nature—a source of so many materials that make my life possible, a source of nourishment—and yet I often feel separate, even estranged, from it.

For now, despite my questioning and searching, I still find it difficult to locate myself within the natural world. Henry David Thoreau wrote that, “not till we are completely lost, or turned round … do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature.” Thoreau wrote this in reference to his fondness for finding his way home in the dark, using familiar smells and sounds and his sense of touch to guide him, nearly sightless, through the forest. I appreciate his words because they accept uncertainty as a companion and embrace searching as a pathway forward.

NOAH WILSON BIO

Noah Wilson received an MFA from San Jose State University and a BA in art history from Humboldt State University. He has had solo exhibitions at the Haines Gallery and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco, and his work is held in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation, the Whitney Museum Library and SF Camerawork. Other exhibitions include the Headlands Center for the Arts, Kala Art Institute, SF Camerawork, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, The African American Museum of Oakland, and the Triton Museum. He has worked as artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Kala Art Institute and Recology (formerly San Francisco Recycling & Disposal), and he has received fellowship awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and from Kala Art Institute. His work has been published in Orion Magazine, Zyzzyva, The Liner and 11/11: A Journal of Literature and Art. He is a professor of photography and the photography department coordinator at Modesto Junior College, and he currently lives and works in Modesto, California.

NOAH WILSON CV

Education

MFA 2006 San Jose State University, CA

BA 2002 Humboldt State University, CA

Select Solo and Group Exhibitions (*solo shows marked with asterisk)

2015 Post-Rural, Modesto Junior College Gallery, Modesto, CA

SF Art Market, Kala Institute Gallery Booth, San Francisco, CA

2014 *Terra Incognita, Modesto Junior College Gallery, Modesto, CA

Artists’ Annual Exhibition, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA

Transformed Landscape, Transmission Gallery, Oakland, CA

Post-Rural, The Brink Gallery, Missoula, MT

Post-Rural, Sheehan Gallery, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA

2013 Fellowship Artists Exhibition, Kala Institute Gallery, Berkeley, CA

Ground Truthing (select images). SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA

The Art of Recology, San Francisco International Airport Museum, San Francisco, CA

Post-Rural, College of Southern Nevada, Fine Arts Gallery, Las Vegas, NV

Post-Rural, University of Wyoming, Visual Arts Gallery, Laramie, WY

2012 Banned & Recovered. National Steinbeck Center, Salinas, CA

SF Camerawork Fine Print Editions. SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA

On View. Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA

Lightscape/Darkscape. Art Works Downtown, San Rafael, CA

Recology Collection. University of San Francisco, Gleeson Library, San Francisco, CA

2011 *Above Me the Day-Blind Stars. True Silver Gallery, San Francisco, CA

*Our Land. San Francisco International Airport Museum, San Francisco, CA

Bay Area Artists for Japan. Mina Dresden Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Banned & Recovered. UC Merced Kolligian Library, Merced, CA

Kala-fornia: State of the Art. Kala Institute Gallery, Berkeley, CA

Art from the Recology AIR Program, Embarcadero 4 Conference Center, San Francisco, CA

2010 Annual Artist in Residence Exhibition. Kala Art Institute Gallery, Berkeley, CA

Work From the Recology Collection. Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco, CA

Banned & Recovered, Artists Respond to Censorship. Humboldt State University, CA

On View. Kala Art Institute Gallery, Berkeley, CA

Reframe: Making Sense of Waste, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2009 Geomorphics. The Nave Gallery, Somerville, MA

Front and Center. Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA

The Artists of Zyzzyva. Mina Dresden Gallery, San Francisco, CA

One to Many. Partisan Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Lay of the Land. Reese Bullen Gallery, Arcata, CA

2008

*Partial Landscapes. Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Off State Street. Orchard Commercial North First ARTSpace, San Jose, CA

Banned & Recovered, Artists Respond to Censorship. African American Museum, Oakland, CA

2007 On Paper. Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Landscapes: Rural and Urban Realities. Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA

Critical Foreground. New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA

2006 *Perfectly Good. SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc., San Francisco, CA

The Art of Recycling Returns. Mills Building, San Francisco, CA

10 Years - A Retrospective. Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA

*A Dream Half Remembered. Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2005

*Aberrations. Callisto Press Limited Editions Gallery, Yountville, CA

*MFA Thesis Exhibition. Gallery 2, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA

2004 For Whom I’ve Studied—From Whom I’ve Learned. First Street Gallery, Eureka, CA

*The Last Leaf. Phantom Galleries: installation at 1st St. & San Fernando, San Jose, CA

2002 *Aberrations. Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, CA

Awards and Honors

2013 Eureka Foundation Fellowship Nominee

2012 Fellowship Award, Kala Art Institute

2010 Joan Mitchell Foundation & Vermont Studio Center Fellowship Kala Fellowship, Honorable Mention Awardee

2003 Excellence in Photography Award, San Jose State University

2000 Van Duzer Scholarship, Humboldt State University

Publications

2014 Unless You Will, February Issue, Maldon, Victoria, Australia

2013 The Liner Magazine, Issue No. 2, Los Angeles / New York

2012 Orion Magazine, November/December Issue, Great Barrington, MA

2011 11 11: A Journal of Literature and Art, Issue 11. California College of the Arts Publication, Oakland, CA

2010 Art at the Dump: The Artist in Residence Program and Environmental Learning Center at Recology (Cover Image), Recology publication, San Francisco, CA

Color & Color #2, Black and White edition, Amanda Curreri and Erik Scollon, Oakland, CA

2009 Banned / Recovered: Artists Respond to Censorship, Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA

2008 Viva Loss (Cover Image), Sarah Fran Wisby, Little Desk Press, San Francisco, CA

ZYZZYVA, Volume 24, Number 2, Fall 2008, San Francisco, CA

2006 ZYZZYVA, Volume 22, Number 3, Winter 2006, San Francisco, CA

SHOTS, Issue No. 91, Russell Joslin—Editor & Publisher, Minneapolis, MN

2003 CMYK Magazine. Issues No. 23, No. 22 and No. 21, Sausalito, CA

2001 A Collector’s Obsession: Photographs of Humboldt County, California, from the Peter E. Palmquist Collection. Peter E. Palmquist, Arcata, CA

Artist Talks and Guest Lectures

2013 Artist Talk, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA

Fellowship Artist Talk, Kala Institute, Berkeley, CA

2012 Panel Discussion on Censorship in Art, The Steinbeck Center. Salinas, CA

2011 Artist talk, Society for Photographic Education, Western Regional Conference, Santa Cruz, CA

Panel Discussion: Professional Careers, Post Graduation, SJSU, San Jose, CA

2010 Artist talk, Society for Photographic Education, Western Regional Conference, San Diego, CA

Panel: Silver Practice in the Digital Age. SPE Western Regional Conference, San Diego, CA

Artist talk, Kala Art Institute Gallery, Berkeley, CA

Artist talk, Vermont Studio Center, VT

2009 Lecture in Intermediate Photography Course, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA

Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin County, CA

Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA

2008 Cabrillo College, Santa Cruz County, CA

Lecture in Beginning Photography Course, California College of Arts, Oakland CA

2007 Artist talk, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA

Lecture in Beginning Photography Course, California College of Arts, Oakland CA

Lecture and demo in Digital Photography Course, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA

2006

Lecture in Intermediate Photography Course, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA

2002 Artist talk, SPE Western Regional Conference, California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA

Artist Residencies

2012-13 Kala Art Institute, Fellowship Artist

2010-11 Kala Art Institute

2010 Vermont Studio Center

2006 AIR Program at San Francisco Recycling & Disposal, Inc.

2002 Student residency at San Francisco Recycling & Disposal, Inc.

Collections

The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation Gap Inc

Little Nell Hotel

Peter E. Palmquist Collection Recology

SF Camerawork

Yousendit, Campbell, CA

Whitney Museum Library Commissions

Little Nell Hotel, Aspen, CO

Conferences

2012 Society for Photographic Education, National Conference, San Francisco, CA

2011 Society for Photographic Education, Western Regional Conference, Santa Cruz, CA

2010 Society for Photographic Education, Western Regional Conference, San Diego, CA

2009 Society for Photographic Education, Western Regional Conference, Oakhurst, CA

2005 Society for Photographic Education, National Conference, Portland, OR

2002 Society for Photographic Education, Western Regional Conference, Oakland, CA

Professional Service & Affiliation

2011-12 Society for Photographic Education, National Conference, Local Planning Committee

2008-15 Member Society for Photographic Education

2005 Member Society for Photographic Education

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

California State University, Stanislaus

Dr. Joseph F. Sheley, President

Dr. James T. Strong, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs

Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Art

Dr. Roxanne Robbin, Chair, Professor

Dean De Cocker, Professor

Daniel Edwards, Assistant Professor

Jessica Gomula, Professor

David Olivant, Professor

Gordon Senior, Professor

Richard Savini, Professor

Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Assistant Professor

Nikki Boudreau, Gallery Assistant

Meg Broderick, Administrative Support Assistant II

Andrew Cain, Instructional Technician I

Jon Kithcart, Equipment Technician II

University Art Gallery

Dean De Cocker, Director

Special Thanks

Rob Stevenson

My Family: Abigale, Elijah and Jessie

Mary Ellen and Woodrow Wilson

Tom Klinker, for taking me fishing

Dan Cope, for taking me fly fishing

The Stanislaus State Dept. of Art gallery installation crew:

Keira Henderson Ezra Ibrae Victoria Johnson

Terry Mack Nieko McDaniel Cristal Tadeo

There ain’t no dark, ‘till somethin’ shines.

— Townes Van Zandt