Bio:
Brent Wahl was born in Wisconsin and grew up in Columbia, SC. Moving to New York in 1989, he studied photography at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In 2004, he moved his studio to Philadelphia where he also attended the University of Pennsylvania.
Wahl's photography, installation and time-based work has been exhibited in a variety of venues and institutions in the U.S. and Europe, including solo exhibitions at Vox Populi and Grizzly Grizzly (Philadelphia), and group exhibitions at the Pearlstein Gallery at Drexel university (Philadelphia), Esther Kline Gallery (Philadelphia), Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia), The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Tate Modern (London), Oblong Gallery (London), #Rank Miami (Miami), X Initiative (NY), Space (Portland, MA), University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), Dumbo Art Center (Brooklyn), Repetti Gallery (NY), Slought Foundation (Philadelphia), Publico (Cincinnati, OH), Weiss Tech House (Philadelphia), Sackler Center Gallery, BMCA (Boulder, CO), Pratt Manhattan (NY), and New York University (NY). In 2012 his work was featured in Arcadia University's ‘A Closer Look 8' and also commissioned by Grizzly Grizzly and Tiger Strikes Asteroid for their Community Supported Arts program.
In 2014, Wahl was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. In 2015 he was honored with the G. Holmes Perkins Distinguished Teaching Award from PennDesign and has since led four photography/media intensive trips abroad to Berlin, Havana, Tokyo, and Bangkok. In 2017, his work was short-listed for the world's preeminent 'ideas festival’, Summit LA (CA). In the summer of 2018, the artist was commissioned and completed a major public artwork for the Philadelphia Rail Park in collaboration with poet Laynie Browne.
Wahl is currently a Senior Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design
Statement:
My mother is a biologist; my father was a musician turned theologian; and my stepfather was a plant morphologist and occasional inventor. Given this upbringing, it is no surprise that I am drawn to transdisciplinary thought and keep it central to my work.
I use the camera as a primary tool for curiosity—a device of discovery and translation. Pushing against the conventions of photography, I explore how new ideas might still emerge through this seemingly universal medium. By staging questions about collective identity, our relationship to reality and perception, and the ways we frame our existence, I work openly with objects, landscapes, and spatial constructs. Through ambiguity and subtle contextual or optical shifts, I move the subject across interpretive ground, revealing unexpected connections and complicating meaning within the frame.
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