Erin Cluley Gallery is pleased to announce Continental Drift – a solo exhibition by California-based artist Gary Goldberg. The exhibition will be on view May 13th through June 24th, 2023, at the gallery’s main location, 150 Manufacturing Street, Suite 210.

For millennia, the walls of Oaxaca, Mexico have reflected the changes of civilization and climate around them; layers of paint, stucco and plaster collect an anonymous story. Alongside the state’s rich artistic traditions and culture, these façades clue residents and visitors into the history of Oaxaca.

Over the course of 20 years, Berkeley-based artist, Gary Goldberg, has visited and photographed the walls of this southern Mexican state. Frequently collaborating with Taller de Afelpado in San Augustín Etla, Goldberg has developed a unique relationship with the walls of Oaxaca; his photography and textiles tap into a universal, yet grounded experience of time passing. In his newest solo exhibition, Continental Drift, Gary Goldberg brings his visions of Oaxaca to Dallas, Texas. Alongside these works, Goldberg extends his distinctive visions of walls to other parts of the world: this new body of work includes images from Edinburgh, Scotland and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In collaboration with trained Oaxacan artisans from the Taller de Afelpado, Goldberg adapts his detailed photographs into large-scale, abstract textiles. Utilizing a traditional dry-felting technique, the trained artisans invigorate Goldberg’s photographs with hand-dyed, vibrant wools.

Reminiscent of work from the Washington Color School, Goldberg imagines topographies of our changing ecological climate; swaths of blue and brown visually recall a birds-eye view of the Earth. As if a mystic, his works interpret patinaed and aging walls as worlds becoming around us.

Continental Drift showcases Goldberg’s newest collaborative textiles. The exhibition builds on themes and aesthetics the artist has cultivated for more than two decades. He applies his keen eye for visual symbolism to areas outside of Oaxaca; Goldberg’s textiles show vibrant connections across continental boundaries. The artist’s characteristic abstractions expand to comment on changing global ecologies and their universal significance. Continental Drift will be Gary Goldberg’s third solo exhibition with Erin Cluley Gallery. Goldberg’s first exhibition with the gallery was in 2018.

Gary Goldberg, Professor Emeritus of Art at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas recently retired from teaching after 37 years. He received an MFA from the University of Nebraska in 1979 and his BFA from Arizona State University in 1975. He has been the recipient of an Emerging Artist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Goldberg’s photographs have been included in over one hundred exhibitions and publications throughout his career. Gary recently moved back to his home state and is living and working in Berkeley, California.

Goldberg’s photographs have been published in numerous magazines, including Texas Monthly, Harpers & Queen, and Texas Music. His photo credits in books include The Family of Women, Exploring Color Photography, Photographic Possibilities, Light and Lens: Photography in the Digital Age, and Bonfire of Roadmaps.

Solo exhibitions mounted by Goldberg have been shown at the Martin Museum of Art, Baylor University; the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock; the Grace Museum in Abilene; the Ellen Noel Art Museum in Odessa, Texas; Erin Cluley Gallery, Dallas and Kouri + Corrao, Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has been included in numerous group exhibitions including Wild Things: Disrupting the Photographic Archive 2020 at CEPA in Buffalo, New York; The Texas Biennial 2017 in Austin, Texas; The 3rd Crosscurrent, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Sin Título Gallery San Francisco California and Sheldon Art Museum, University of Nebraska, Lincoln Nebraska. Public collections in which Goldberg’s photographs appear include the Victoria & Albert Museum; the Photography Collection in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin; Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; The Wittliff Collections, Alkek Library, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas; Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska and the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.