Sous Les Etoiles Gallery is pleased to present "Scenes," opening Thursday, May 29, by American landscape installation artist and photographer Barry Underwood.  The exhibition marks the photographer’s first solo show in New York City.  An Artist’s Talk will also be held on Monday, June 2, 7-8pm.

Drawing from his early theatrical training, and influenced by historical methods of staged photography and constructed set design, Barry Underwood seeks to transform ordinary, everyday vistas into unique, and often surreal, experiences.  "This tension between the familiar and the surreal gives the images a strange power," Underwood writes.  "I fashion these scenes by immersing myself in a place, instinctively reading the landscape, and then altering the site through LED lights, luminescent material, and other photographic effects.  In the final prints, lights and alterations appear as intrusions, transforming landscapes into abstract images."

Both Underwood’s installation process, which uses actual structures and may take several days to complete, and his documentation, employing long exposure times to harness the area’s ambient light, rely just as much on the artist’s ability to harmoniously collaborate with nature as disrupt it.  “Each photographic image is a dialogue—the result of my direct encounter with nature and history,” the artist explains.  “Curiosity about ecological and social history of specific places drives my work.”