Andrew Fladeboe's The Shepherd's Realm: The Dogs of New Zealand and Norway on view at Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art, New York
MFA candidate Andrew Fladeboe's The Shepherd’s Realm is a multi-part photographic series of portraits of working dogs set against striking landscapes. The result of extensive international travel, the exhibition features fifteen photographs taken in New Zealand as part of a Fulbright scholarship, ten produced in Norway, and one early photograph from the series taken in Scotland. This is the gallery’s first solo exhibition of Fladeboe’s work and the third installment of Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art’s exhibition series at Site 109 in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
As Fladeboe points out, “the camera is also an instrument of science and facts. I want to illustrate these animals in the way they truly are.” In this manner the series merges the traits of Romanticism with the scientific and documentarian elements of Realism. While this pairing might seem like an oxymoron, it fits with the Victorian era’s pursuit of the wondrous beauty of nature comingling with the scientific. “My work inhabits the realms between the accurate portrayal of nature and the emotional qualities of it,” says Fladeboe.
Over the Mountain, Huntaway, New Zealand, 2014
Fladeboe’s photographs have been featured in publications including American Photography, The Vice Photo Book, and the forthcoming Identities Now: Contemporary Portrait Photography. The Shepherd’s Realm has been showcased in numerous online publications including National Geographic, Slate, Buzzfeed, and The Telegraph. He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and was awarded a 2014 Fulbright grant for photography in New Zealand. Fladeboe travels around the world to capture and exhibit his portraits and to work on private commissions.
For more on Fladeboe, visit his website.
Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art
Exhibition on view October 8 – November 1, 2015
Reception: 10 October, 6 – 8pm
