Barrow Cabin 2, Summer 2010 / Winter 2012
Archival Pigment Print
(2) 16 x 20 inch photographs
Edition: 1 of 10, signed
Framed retail: $4,800
© and courtesy Eirik Johnson
Eirik Johnson is a photographic artist based in Seattle, WA. His work has been exhibited at spaces including the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Aperture Foundation in New York. He has received awards including The Neddy, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in 2009, the Santa Fe Prize in 2005 and a William J. Fullbright Grant to Peru in 2000. Johnson’s work is in the collections of institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and the George Eastman House. Books by Johnson include Sawdust Mountain (Aperture, 2009), Borderlands (Twin Palms, 2005), and Snow Star (Cavallo Point Press, 2009). His editorial work has appeared in numerous magazines including Dwell, Metropolis, The New York Times T Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. Eirik Johnson is represented locally by G.Gibson Gallery.
These pictures depict seasonal hunting cabins built by the native Iñupiat inhabitants of Barrow, Alaska as seen through the extremes of the Arctic summer and winter. The cabins are situated on Point Barrow, along the shores of the Chukchi Sea, part of the larger Arctic Ocean. Iñupiat families travel from Barrow to the cabins to hunt for waterfowl in the summer and bowhead whales and seals in the winter. Seen together, both the summer and winter images are a meditation on the passage of time and the fragile seasonal shift along the extreme horizon of the Arctic.