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?

Portfolios

  1. Radiant Ether

    Radiant Ether

  2. the kids Were alright

    best friend

  3. Myanmar: Televised & Ignored

    revolution televised and ignored

  4. Radiant Ether (set 2)

    Radiant Ether

  5. Tempus Incognitus

    Jose

  6. Night Amalgam

    Hawthorne

  7. Day Amalgam

    Day Amalgam 12

  8. Layer(s) Organic

    Branch to Flower

  9. Single Images

    Blue Eyes

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.

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

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.

I've gained a deeper understanding by learning how to hand-build my own professional-grade fireworks.
(Brad's handmade Fireworks: Videos).


Radiant Ether (click for portfolio)
best friend Brad-Carlile_28_A5A0607.jpg 17_MG_6149

Links to my Recent Articles

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).