Lynn Geesaman

Lynn Geesaman (1938-2020) creates large-scale, color photographs of public parks and formal gardens throughout the United States and Europe. Exploring the artificial nature of these cultivated landscapes, Geesaman’s highly aestheticized images emphasize geometry and form over subject matter. Although devoid of people, human intervention is nonetheless present through the manicured conditions of the hedges and the symmetrical placement of the trees.

In her black-and-white photographs taken in Damme, Belgium, in 1992 and 1995, uniform rows of slender trees become a series of parallel lines, running alongside a canal or converging at a far-off vanishing point. A more recent color photograph, taken in Damme in 2004, continues this line of investigation, recalling the “zips” of Barnett Newman’s canvases with the tree trunk in the foreground that bisects the pictured landscape.

This tension between abstraction and representation is present in much of her work, and is achieved partly through her specific printing technique. This process intensifies the color and gives her photographs a soft, almost out of focus, quality, which also evokes the early Pictorialist photographers. Through these dreamlike presentations, the artist taps into the emotional undercurrent that connects her to each of the places she photographs, offsetting the initial, highly formal look of the work. Through her particular use of color and light, Geesaman creates a tension between the highly structured landscapes and their illusory, or otherworldly, nature.