From the icebergs carved by the waters of Disko Bay to the Nubian pyramids eroded by winds, American photographer Lynn Davis travels a broad panorama of territories composing a rich collection extraordinary work that evolved over the last thirty years. Whether natural sculptures shaped over centuries or architectural buildings of antiquity, the works of Lynn Davis put human action into perspective, both directly and collaterally.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE “Desert and Ice” Lynn Davis, 09 January – 02 April, Karsten Greve Gallery, Paris galerie-karsten-greve.com

Galerie Karsten Greve Paris has put together some of Davis’ most impressive photographs in a show presenting works from a series initiated in 1986 when the artist decided to abandon her practice of the nude to pursue a working documentation of compositions and shapes in a decidedly minimalist aesthetic. The selection emphasizes the richness of Lynn Davis’ oeuvre and the plurality of themes covered during her career.

A certain kinship with some of the big names of American sculpture of the sixties, their concerns and aesthetic bias may be found in this series, especially in the elementary geometric shapes of monuments and the development of a certain architectural serialism that one finds in the alignment of the beams of the Temple of Awam, of the Palmyra Tetrapylon or in that of the religious buildings in the ancient city of Nubia.

The use of gold and selenium give the works an evanescent touch, which helps to impose a certain distance, a doubt as to when the photographs were taken. Background and subject combine, in a foggy, misty amalgam, from which no predominant element emerges, the work demanding to be understood and considered as a whole.

Lynn Davis graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970 and became assistant to the photographer Berenice Abbott. She initially oriented her photography practice to the nude alongside her close friend Robert Mapplethorpe and then abandoned the representation of the human body in the late eighties to devote herself to landscape and architectural photography. Recognized internationally, her works are present in prestigious collections. Melcher Media Publishing has recently devoted a book to her work prefaced by Patti Smith entitled Ice and published in 2015.