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
These asymmetrical explosions draw us in... but scare us. Are these color-negative images a Rorschach test for our times?
Radiant Ether
Brad's Process
Radiant Ether images are shot handheld. The movement comes from drifting bursts carried by the wind and from my dancing with the pyro.
Awards
22nd Pollux Awards, FotoNostrum 2025
Tokyo Int'l Foto Awards, TIFA 2025
Prix de la Photographie, Px3 2024
Biennials
Athens Photo Festival 2024 shortlist
Festival de la Luz 2014 Biennial
Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial, NYC
Museums
MoMA Rio de Janeiro Brazil (acquisition)
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo
The Griffen Museum (Boston Globe)
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
Jose (48"x60"), Bange, Rainie, Sevee, Alb (30"x40")
Reflections
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"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 -
"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."
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"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
Links to my Recent Articles
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 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,
LenScratch,
FeatureShoot,
PDN Photo of the Day,
Portland Architecture,
New Landscape Photography,
Musee Vanguard Photography,
Inkult Magazine,
Design Taxi,
FLaxPhoto,
Saatchi Art,
Trendland
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).