Manifest is the first solo exhibition in the Pacific Northwest for Upstate New York-based artist Richard Barlow. Barlow’s artistic practice is strongly rooted in his interest in photography, its chemical and quasi-alchemical beginnings, and its ability to depict, represent, and reproduce. Manifest showcases three ongoing series of works by the artist throughout the run of the exhibition in a variety of media exploring photography’s origins and intersections with the natural world.

On view from April 27 –  August 24,The Photogenic Drawing series makes use of positive and negative space to reimagine one of the oldest photos ever created: Henry Fox-Talbot’s 1835 photograph of a large window at Laycock Abbey in rural England. During this same time frame, the Covers series presents another exploration of photography as ‘light drawing’ (photo: light; graph: drawing), with mysteriously evocative images of the natural world—trees, mountains, water—rendered in silver leaf on vellum, a process almost medieval in its craft and care.

These twenty-first century explorations of twentieth century modernism and the temporality of the natural world lead to Barlow’s major intervention for BAM’s Boeing Apertures Gallery. Manifest, the exhibition’s title piece, is  an 1,300 square foot chalk drawing recreating the mystery and majesty of ancient woodland, a perfect subject for the Pacific Northwest, along the gallery’s south wall. BAM visitors had the opportunity to view the artist at work on this chalk drawing from July 2 - 14. This new work is designed to be as temporal as the boreal forests and as fleeting as a developing photograph. It will be destroyed at the end of the exhibition, September 23, and exist only in our memories, or in the photographs that we take.

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Richard Barlow worked on-site for twelve days to create ‘Manifest’, his largest chalk drawing to date. Exploring the darker sides of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny, Barlow created the drawing by stitching together historical images of the Pacific Northwest depicting old growth forests, logging, and the impact of logging on the region’s natural areas.

Check out the video to see the creation of this 1,300 sq ft chalk drawing. Like Barlow’s other chalk drawings, ‘Manifest’ is site-specific and temporary. It will be erased at the end of the exhibition on September 23, 2018. Music: “Burned Grove,” by Take Acre.