4. RICHARD LEAROYD Dalias, 2021 unique Ilfochrome photograph © Richard Learoyd, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Fraenkel Gallery Presents Richard Learoyd

Fraenkel Gallery presents a new exhibition by British artist Richard Learoyd, his fifth with the gallery.

Learoyd’s recent work deepens his exploration of classical themes, using exacting techniques to create pictorially lush, one-of-a-kind photographs.

The exhibition features approximately twenty works—nudes, still lifes, and portraits—made over the last three years using the artist’s room-sized camera obscura in London.

“Learoyd’s meticulous process uses cumbersome technology to make rich, grainless images that are painterly in their nuanced attention to pose, detail, tone, and texture. His botanical still lifes depict vibrant and wilting flowers, subjects Learoyd has called transient and fugitive, “alive and dead at the same time. Other still lifes feature taxidermied parrots, elephant bones, candles, and mirrors—objects that suggest questions of illusion and mortality.”