There is no artwork available.

MCCAW Chris, Photography, invited artist, La fabrique des éléments

Chris McCaw's artistic practice is firmly rooted in the history of photography, while pushing the medium in new directions. His experimental process recalls the work of photography pioneer Henry Fox Talbot, combined with the paintings of Lucio Fontana. McCaw has seized on this notion of simultaneous creation-destruction and exploited the resulting tension, working with the unpredictable process so elegantly that he achieves a polished, highly crafted style, yet one that remains dependent on the raw, visceral contribution of chance, light and the Earth's rotation.

In Chris McCaw's iconic Sunburn series, the lenses of the artist's handmade cameras function as magnifying glasses, allowing the sun to literally burn its way through the light-sensitive negatives, which are often solarized in the process. The subject of the photograph (the sun) disrupts the idea that a photograph is simply a representation of reality - instead, it becomes a physical embodiment of the Earth's movement and the passage of time. In his photographs, the horizon line becomes the site on which our own celestial movements are mapped, linking the viewer to the wider cycles of astronomical time and planetary motion.

Artist represented by Galerie Bigaignon, Paris

Solo exhibitions

2022 Into the Sun, Datz Museum of Art, South Korea

2018 New Works, Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA

2017 Time and Tides, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2016 Direct Positive, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY

2012 Marking Time, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY

2011 Ride into the Sun, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2010 Sunburned, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2008 New work from the Sunburn Project, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, NY
Sunburn, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA
Sunburns, Duncan Miller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2003 Powerhouse, Family Farm and Travelogue, Image/Imatge Gallery, Orthez, FR

Group exhibitions

2024 The awe of the arctic:A Visual History, New York Public Library, NY

2023 Touch the Sun, Marshall Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Ansel Adams in Our Time, De Young Museum , San Francisco, CA

2022 Time’s Relentless Melt, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ

2021 Ansel Adams in Our Time, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR

2020 Ansel Adams in Our Time, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
ONE: An Exhibition of Unique Objects, Transformer Station, Cleveland, OH
Photography to the Test of Abstraction, FRAC Normandie Rouen, Rouen, France
Micro-Onde, Centre d’art contemporain de l’Onde, Vélizy-Villacoublay, France
Centre Photographie D’Île De-France, Pontault-Combault, France

2019 A Cure For Everything, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Fundamentals, Black Box Projects, London, UK
Painting with Light, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, NY
The Polaroid Project, Musee McCord, Montreal
The Sheltering Sky, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA
The Polaroid Project, National Museum of Singapore, Singapore

2018 Ansel Adams in Our Time, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
The Polaroid Project, C/O Berlin, Berlin
The Polaroid Project, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Hamburg
10,000 Fahrenheit, San Francisco arts Commission, San Francisco, CA
New Territory: Landscape Photography Today, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
Way Bay 2, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
The Polaroid Project, WestLicht Museum for Photography, Vienna

2017 The Basilisk, Nicodim Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The Polaroid Project, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX
Sea Views, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Low Fidelity, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA
Phenomenon, Bolinas Art Museum, Bolinas, CA

2016 A Matter of Memory: Photography as Object in the Digital Age, George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY
Retro-spective: Analog Photography in a Digital World, MOCA, Jacksonville
The Sun Placed in the Abyss, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Berkeley Eye: Perspectives on the Collection, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA
I Am the Sun, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, ILn the Digital Age, George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY
Touch the Sky: Art and Astronomy, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
This is a Photograph, Penland Gallery, Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
Defying Darkness: Photography at Night, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
Look Inside: New Photography Acquisitions, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, TX

2015 Photography and the Scientific Spirit, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI
The Memory of Time: Contemporary Photographs at the National Gallery of Art, Acquired with the Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

2014 Modern Alchemy: Experiments in Photography, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY
After Ansel Adams, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA

2013 Reality Check, Bakalar & Paine Galleries, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA
With a Trace: Photographs of Absence, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH
Currents: Photographs from the Collection of Allen Thomas Jr., Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, NC
Landmark: The Fields of Photography, Somerset House Trust, London, UK
Light Sensitive: Photographic Works from North Carolina Collections, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC

2011 Sun Works, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
Bending the Light, Oakland International Airport Exhibition, Oakland, CA
Heavens: Photographs of the Sky and Cosmos, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Seeing is Knowing: the Universe, Perlman Teaching Museum, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
Out of the Dark Room, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
Pure Photography, Post Production and Mixed Media, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
California Continued: New Approaches in West Coast Photography, Smith Anderson North, San Anselmo, CA
EcoArchive: Meditations on Time and Nature, Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Open Season, Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC

2010 The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Redisplay of the Photography Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Past Forward: Marking Time in Recent Photography, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Exposed: Today’s Photography/Yesterday’s Technology, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, CA
Elemental, photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Edges of Light: Explorations of the Photographic Process, ArtsBenicia, Benicia, CA
State of Mind: A California Invitational, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA
An Autobiography of the San Francisco Bay Area Part 2: The Future Lasts Forever, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA
Burning Desire, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, New York, NY

2009 Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, Aperture Gallery, NY
10 × 10 × 10: An Invitational Exhibition, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Transmutations, Michael Mazzeo Gallery, NY
Landmark, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Keeping Time, Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA

2008 Landscape/Other, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, CA
People & Places, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC
Each Sun, Togonon Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Grace, PEER Gallery, New York, NY
Mineral, Hous Projects, New York, NY
Sunburn, The Center for Contemporary Arts, Abilene, TX

2007 Time Tracers, Center of Photography, Woodstock, NY
Sunburn, Houston Center of Photography, Houston, TX
Strange Weather, David Cunningham Projects, San Francisco, CA
Sunburn, Burien Art Gallery, Burien , WA
Sunburns and Platinum Work, Moab Art Works, Moab, UT
Lucky Day, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2006 Sunburned & Waterlogged, Gallery of Urban Art, Oakland, CA
Eyewitness II, UC Berkeley School of Journalism, Berkeley, CA
Platinum Places, Watermark Fine Art, Houston, TX
Outmoded, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
Lost Out West, 19th & Union Gallery, Oakland, CA
Contemporary Landscape, Baxter/Chang/Patri Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
The Family Farm, San Francisco International Airport Museum, CA

2005 Romancing the Shadows, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA
Contemporary American Photography, Internationale Fototage Mannheim/Ludwigshafen, Germany
Vital Signs, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
The Family Farm, Watermark Fine Art, Houston, TX
Travelogue, Fusion Artspace, San Francisco, CA

2004 Live Free or Die, Freewheel, San Francisco, CA

2003 Chris McCaw-American Photographs, Image/Imatge Gallery, Orthez, France

2002 Identity, San Francisco Main Library, San Francisco, CA

2001 SF Camerawork, Fine Print Collection, San Francisco, CA
Vivid, SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA

2000 Timeless Light, Contemporary Crafts Gallery, Portland, OR

1999 Portraits, Bloom Studio, Oakland, CA

1998 Road Trip Documents, Spindler, San Francisco, CA

1995 Graduate show, Academy of Art, San Francisco, CA

1993 Friends of the South Bay Punk Scene, The Other Gallery, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

1991 Infrared Views, The Other Gallery, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

Awards

2014 Emerging Icon in Photography, George Eastman House, International Museum of Film and Photography, Rochester, NY

2008 New Works Grant, Andy Warhol Foundation / SF Camerawork, San Francisco, CA

2007 Alternative Exposure Grant, Andy Warhol Foundation / Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA

1996 Honorable Mention, Photo Metro, Photography Contest Issue

1992 John Long Memorial Photography Scholarship, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA

Selected public collection

Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX

Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA

Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ

Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH

Crocker Art Museum Sacramento, CA

Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT

George Eastman House International Museum of Photography, Rochester, NY

Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Arty, Kansas City, MO

North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC

Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR

Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

University of Oregon, Eugene, OR

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Artists to
discover