Owen Gump (born 1980 in California and now mainly resident of Berlin), initially studied under Thomas Ruff and Walter Nikkels at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, before continuing his education with Peter Piller at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig.

Gump’s photographs invite viewers to perceive the landscapes of the American West – the desert of Nevada, the coastline of California – not as an apparent visual manifestation of natural beauty, and instead to recognise in them all that has been carved into their surfaces, and the traces of use that these expanses of land carry, whether visible or hidden.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Owen Gump: El Niño at Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, 28 November 2015 – 28 February 2016.

English and German text.