Matthew Besinger is a fine art photographer who focuses on long-term projects and photography books. His interests include American holidays, regional folklore, minimalist music and architecture, cactus, junk food, and Japanese road trips. He has exhibited nationally and internationally.

Besinger's book, "Dead Desert Night", is a set of nighttime landscapes from the Sonoran Desert. Shooting at night and using only ambient light, the long exposures empty the terrain of its inhabitants and reveal hidden vistas, unseen objects, and fields of color. The landscapes raise questions about our abstraction of the West and its role as an unlikely home. The book was produced in a limited run for his first solo show in New York City.

"Coins for the Crossing" is a conclusion to his first book, exploring not the land but the human archetyoes of the West . Its unperturbed characters paint a quiet and private Western life. The desert night acts as cover for travelers, spiritualists, one-man border patrols, prostitutes, astronomers, anarchists- all settled in pockets austere and somehow unknown. Their narratives share the act of searching: for solitude, transcendence, the 'other', new lives, distant worlds. The book is bright and white, edited in the form of a Greek 'katabasis' (journey to the underworld); the images uneasy, sometimes unkind, but in love with outliers.

He is currently using his 8x10 to shoot an American Book of Days.

 
 
Select Shows
 
 
 MIART, International Contemporary Art Fair, Milan, Italy
 
Madrid Photo, El Ojo, Madrid, Spain
 
 
 Art Verona, Independents, Verona, Italy
 
Daylight/CDS, Durham NC
 
 
 Present Tense, Photo Center NW, Seattle WA
 
Pieces of Heaven, Christie's Auction, Beverly Hills CA
 
 
Colors of Life, Kkien Atelier, Milan, Italy
 
New York Photo Festival, New York NY
 
Group Show No. 27, Humble Arts Foundation, online
 
 
Dead Desert Night, Creative Pier Gallery, New York NY
 
Aftermath, Target Gallery, Washington DC

Publications
 
 Annex the Desert, Attice Slope, Tucson AZ
Heaven, Vogue (New York, Paris)
 
Dead Desert Night, Attic Slope, Tucson AZ
 
Washington Post, "Imploding House"


Juried Reviews
 
 Critical Mass, Portland OR (Finalist)
 
 Review Santa Fe 100, Santa Fe NM (Individual Listing)
 
Fresh Portfolio Review, Lucie Foundation, Los Angeles CA


Awards
 
 
 2nd Place, Denise Wolff, Aperture, Juror, Present Tense, Photo Center NW, Seattle WA
   
3rd Place, Colors of Life, Washington DC
 
 Honorable Mention, International Photography Awards (1) (2), London
Fine Art Image Nominee, New York Photo Festival, New York NY


Interviews
 
 ONWARD, Project Basho, online

 



   

Client List
    American Indian Society, Amtrak, Audubon Society, Cinefamily, Coterie Theatre, Hallmark Cards, Henry Ford Museum, Knotts Berry Farm, Monster Massive, No More Deaths, Mark Danielewski, Musee Conti, Party City, Philadelphia Free Library, St. John's Northwestern Military Academy

 


e-mail


Books: Books can be returned at my expense.

UPS W04740
FedEx 392488820