Series: Radiant Ether

Radiant Ether

These asymmetrical explosions draw us in... but scare us. Are these color-negative images a Rorschach test for our times?

Radiant Ether

We live in a world of constant explosions of strong opinions, biases, fears, and energy. In this chaos, nothing feels entirely safe.

These images capture a seductive, beautiful, and ephemeral mix of color, light, and motion.

In this series, the colors are intentionally inverted, resembling the color negatives of a film camera. Vibrant hues are transformed into soft pastels, and once-familiar shapes become unfamiliar. This invites us to pause, reconsider, and question what we see.

The images echo the appearance of inkblot patterns used in Rorschach tests, which are designed to reveal subconscious thoughts and emotions through the interpretation of ambiguity.


Radiant Ether
 (click for portfolio)
best friend Brad-Carlile_28_A5A0607.jpg 17_MG_6149
Series: kids Were alright - Myanmar 2013v2023

the kids Were alright - 2013 & +10 years

Previous series: 2013 pre-coup images taken in Myanmar are combined with photographs of manually typed words from today's resistance fighters (portfolio link)

Biennials

Athens Photo Festival 2024 shortlist
Festival de la Luz 2014 Biennial
Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial, NYC

Chosen Portland's Best Fine Art

Press Release:
"The Independent is pleased to present photographs by Brad Carlile as our inaugural exhibition. Carlile was a winner of the 2009 Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial. The Hearst Biennial judges were Peter Lindbergh, Mary Ellen Mark, Steve McCurry, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, John A. Bennette III.

Empty hotel rooms from all over the world form the basis of these works, all shot in multiple exposures over time on film, with
no digital manipulation.

The rooms are electric with vibrant color, yet spare and detached by virtue of their transient energy and occupation. The perimeters of shifted space and time are blurred, giving a result
both classic and contemporary."

Houston Show

De Santos Gallery. Brad Carlile, Contemporary Fine Art Photograph, change highlighted with vivid color without digital manipulation, tempus incognitus
De Santos Gallery (Houston TX):
Jose (48"x60"), Bange, Rainie, Sevee, Alb (30"x40")

Reflections

  • "Brad Carlile's Tempus Incognitus at The Independent took us on a tour of brightly colored hotel rooms, rendered in eerie long exposures."

    That year chosen as Best Photography Show of the Year

    Richard Speer, Willamette Week

  • "The conscious choice to photograph places of transience is less a comment on twenty-first-century ennui and dislocation and more about fixing our complicated relationship with time’s passage to a place we know very well: the universal hotel room."

    Todd Tubutis, Director of Blue Sky Gallery

  • "The luridness of the shade of green in Brad Carlile’s “Deec" — think limeade laced with gangrene — has to be seen to be disbelieved. Androids may or may not dream of electric sheep. But if dream they do, this is what the green in those dreams must look like."

    Mark Feeney, The Boston Globe
    Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic

Portfolios

  1. Radiant Ether

    Radiant Ether

  2. the kids Were alright

    best friend

  3. Myanmar: Televised & Ignored

    revolution televised and ignored

  4. Chaos for Amateurs

    Chaos for Amatuers beach

  5. Tempus Incognitus

    Jodo

  6. Night Amalgam

    Hawthorne

  7. Day Amalgam

    Day Amalgam 12

  8. Layer(s) Organic

    Branch to Flower

  9. Images

    Blue Eyes

Links to my Recent Blog posts

Artist Resume - CV

BIENNIALS AND MUSEUMS

2024 Athens Photo Festival 2024 (APhF:24), Shortlist

2016 Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (MAC), Acquisition, Salta Argentina

2015 Ballarat 2015 Biennial, Australia

2014 Festival de la Luz Biennial, Buenos Aires, Argentina

2009 Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial, Heast Tower, Brodovitch Gallery, New York

2008 "Foreign potografias", MoMA Rio de Janeiro, Acquisition, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

AWARDS & GRANTS

2025 22nd Pollux Award

2025 TIFA Tokyo International Foto

2024 Critical Mass Top 200

2024 Px3 Honorable Mention, "Blue Eyes"

2023 Px3 State of the World, Shortlist

2023 Prix de la Photographie de Paris, Silver

2023 The Photo Review, Stephen Perloff, PA

2023 Deep Perspective, Int'l Photo Awards, NYC 

2022 Arte Laguna Prize 17, Selection, Venice

2022 Deep Perspective, Int'l Photo Awards, NYC

2016 Annual B&W Spider Awards, Beverly Hills, CA

2016 Int'l Color Awards, Beverly Hills, CA

2014 PDN Photo Award Winner, Fine Art, New York

2014 Deep Perspective, Int'l Photo Awards, NYC

2013 Fine Art, Int'l Photo Awards, IPA, New York

2009 Hearst 8x10 Photo Biennial, New York

2009 Professional Grant, RACC, Portland Oregon

2006 1st Place, Photo Annual, Alaska Airlines

2005 Pacific NW Annual, Univ. of Oregon

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2014 Festival de la Luz Biennial, Buenos Aires

2014 Galería Alicia D´Amico, Buenos Aires

2011 Independent, Portland OR - Portland's best

2010 De Santos Gallery, Houston, TX

2008 Galerie Maurer, Munich, Germany

2004 Refracted Move, Pushdot Studio, Portland, OR

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025 HCP 42nd Center Annual, Houston

2025 Blue Sky's PNW Viewing Drawers, Portland

2016 Palm Springs Fine Art Fair, Palm Springs CA

2015 Radical Color, Newspace, Portland, OR

2014 20th Annual, Griffen Museum, Winchester, MA

2013 Archisle 2013, Société Jersiaise, Jersey, UK

2013 GeoGráfica, La Fototeca, Guatemala City

2013 Blue Sky's PNW Viewing Drawers, Portland

2012 Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE

2012 Slideshow, Annenberg Photo, Los Angeles

2012 Mark Woolley Gallery, Portland, OR

2012 Blue Sky's PNW Viewing Drawers, Portland,

2011 Photo Review, Stephen Perloff, Langhorne, PA

2010 14th Friends of Friends Auction, New York

2009 Rooted, Galerie Clairefontaine, Luxembourg

2009 Contemp Photo, Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC

2007 photo:net, Thomas Kellner, Siegen, Germany

2006 Environmental Photo, Art Wolfe, Seattle, WA

2004 Don O'Melveny Gallery, West Hollywood, CA

2004 Hasselblad, Austria, Germany, Qatar, China

2003 World Council Arts, Herbst, San Francisco, CA

2003 Scene/Unseen, Runnels Gallery, Portales, NM

PRESS & INTERVIEWS

"Contemporary Photographers With Radical Color," Huffington Post

Tempus Incognitus,” BETA in photography, Ballarat Int'l Festival

"Tempus Incognitus," Exposure, Society Photographic Education (SPE)

The jury isn’t out at the Griffin Museum,” The Boston Globe

Good Reason for a short trip to Delaware,” Philadelphia Inquirer

10 Favorite Visual Arts Shows of 2011,” Willamette Week

Brad Carlile: Confronting the myth of the great American road,” Willamette Week

"Brad Carlile at the Independent -- lost in space-time," The Oregonian

"Brad Carlile: photographing hotel rooms around the world," Portland Architecture

"Photographer Brad Carlile sheds new light on hotel rooms", Houston Chronicle

"ROOTED Exhibition", Luxembourg TV's KULTUR RTL.LU, CultureINSIDE Wiki page

David-West, Haig, ed. Scene-Unseen, Portales, New Mexico

BLOGS

Huffington Post,
The Independent Photographer,
PDN Photo of the Day,
LenScratch,
FeatureShoot,
Design Taxi,
FLaxPhoto,
Portland Architecture,
Inkult Magazine,
New Landscape Photography,
Musee Vanguard Photography,
Saatchi Art,
Trendland


 (link to full resume)


I drive an Art Car (info/photos) that was painted by Portland Artist Tom Cramer (Wikipedia) for the grand opening of the DeSoto building for the Museum of Contemporary Craft (Wikipedia).