New Works: New Photographs from Doug Dertinger, Nicole Jean Hill, and David Woody

Axis Gallery is proud to present “New Works,”3 bodies of recent photographic work by California artists Doug Dertinger, Nicole Jean Hill, and David Woody. “New Works” is focused on our relationships with environments. In Axis’ East Gallery, Nicole Jean Hill’s “Trace” subtly explores the efforts behind wilderness management and what this might reveal about our need to define and conserve “the wild.” In Axis’ Main Gallery, David Woody’s “Encounters” examines the far north coast of California, the Romantic tensions in its rugged yet ephemeral landscapes and the allure it exerts on people living or passing through it. Doug Dertinger’s “Seattle” is a fragmentary and idiosyncratic archive of his hometown of Seattle, Washington, acquired over years attempting to encompass the totality of the city on foot. “New Works” will be up at Axis Gallery April 1st through May 1st and is part of Sacramento’s biannual Photography Month.

In the East Gallery

For over a decade, Nicole Jean Hill has been photographing various intersections between humans, animals, and the land. In her recent work, "Trace," Hill explores efforts to preserve and manage wilderness. Her work acts to supplant romantic notions of a sublime wilderness, utterly removed from human care. “I am interested in participating in and responding to the more realistic version of wilderness,” Hill writes, “to hopefully bring about important questions regarding the meaning of ‘nature’ and ‘wilderness’ and the role of humans and non-humans in those spaces.”

In the Main Gallery

David Woody’s "Encounters" continues his exploration of Humboldt County, California as a place and people shaped by the elemental forces of the north coast. Ephemerality, the rugged durability of the wilderness, elemental time, and the allure and mythology of the road are all motifs in Woody’s work. “One becomes aware of time in a different way here,” writes Woody, “in the forests, by the ocean, on the bay, time is measured in atmospheric occurrences…one cannot escape being impacted by the wilderness.”

"Seattle" presents images from the first five years Doug Dertinger’s ongoing diaristic record of Seattle, Washington, an archive in fragments of the encounters and phenomena had while walking the city. The work explores both the pleasures and limits of the flaneur, and like "Hiroshige’s 100 Views of Edo," asks us to consider what role the mass of oblique and partial views plays in our comprehension and construction of place. “In the end,” Dertinger writes, “let us thank all that was of limited consequence to us, all that was seen, noted, and forgotten; deep strata, layer on layer, from which our beautiful and tragic stories are drawn and rooted.”

Artist Bios

David Woody lives and works in Eureka, Ca, where he teaches in the Department of Art at Cal Poly Humboldt. He has exhibited and published work widely and has work in the permanent collection of National Portrait Gallery. Nicole Jean Hill is an artist, educator, and editor, living and working in Eureka, California where she is the chair of the Art Department at Cal Poly Humboldt. Her most recent publication, "Encampment, Wyoming," about the work of pioneer photographer Lora Webb Nichols, was published in 2021 by Fw:Books. Doug Dertinger lives and works in Sacramento, CA, and teaches in the Design Department at Sacramento State University. He has exhibited widely and has work in the permanent collection of Princeton University.