Barry Stone - Daily, in a Nimble Sea

Gaa Gallery is pleased to present Daily, in a Nimble Sea, an exhibition of photographs that document the transformations of the natural world on Bailey Island, Maine, and the inherent metaphor found there of the passage of time. The exhibition opens on July 14 at 6pm, and that same evening the gallery will host a book launch of the monograph Daily, in a Nimble Sea, published by Silas Finch.

At the intersection of technological intervention and traditional photography, the work of Barry Stone encompasses daily moments in their fleeting and immaterial qualities. An artist and photographer  living in Austin, Texas, Stone’s work encounters and transforms everyday spaces by means of technological interventions.
 
Stone’s work incorporates conventional, straightforward photography and the in-depth digital alteration of images. Presenting documents of digital and gestural glitch Stone works with a process of databending, whereby he manipulates photographs by altering their digital code. In this process images are first converted into text-based files. Modifications are then made to the code of the image and then reconverted. The resulting photograph bears the intentional and chance malfunctions of the image, coded artifacts, and distortion.  This process creates realities that reflect the malleability of meaning in the photographic image, while creating a relationship to a broader language of time-based media, painting and photography.
 
In his recent work Stone has been working with images taken on Bailey Island, a small, rocky island off of the coast of Maine. In these images one encounters the transformation of a coastline from hard edge to foggy abyss, a place where time is inevitable, steadfast, and cyclical. The technological residue of process interrupts and integrates itself within the landscape, and in this way the digital creates a filter, an atmosphere of fog, tidal changes, and shifts in light - all markers of time and presence.
 
While simultaneously reflecting actual and digital realities, photography is used both as a means of documentation and manipulation. Stone’s work presents the grandeur and wholeness of nature paired with the banality and intimacy of everyday moments. Daily, In a Nimble Sea is a world of intersections—the authentic and the artificial, the real and the imagined, digitally realized dreamscapes that illuminate the natural world.
 
Barry Stone was born in Lubbock, Texas, and earned a BA in Biology and an MFA in Studio Art in Photography from the University of Texas at Austin. Stone is an Associate Professor and the Coordinator of the Photography Program in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University. His work has been nationally and internationally exhibited, most recently at Gaa Gallery Project Space (Cologne, Germany), Gaa Gallery (Wellfleet, MA), The Lianzhou Photography Festival in China, and with Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery (New York, NY).  His photographs have been acquired by many collections including the Cleveland Clinic, Fidelity Mutual Corporation Collection, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Stone’s work has been reviewed in many publications including Artforum, Artlies, Artnet, Washington City Paper, The New York Sun, TimeOut New York, and the New York Times.