EIRIK JOHNSON: PINE
Summer residency at Foster/White Gallery
June 4 – July 25, 2026
Opening Reception: First Thursday, June 4, 6 – 8 pm
Hosted at Foster/White Gallery
220 3rd Avenue South
Pioneer Square, Seattle, WA
Koplin Del Rio is pleased to present PINE, a solo exhibition by Seattle-born photographer Eirik Johnson, on view June 4 through July 25, 2026. The exhibition will be presented as a summer residency hosted by Foster/White Gallery in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood.
As Koplin Del Rio transitions to a salon-style viewing model by appointment, this summer presentation marks an exciting collaboration between two longstanding Seattle galleries. Foster/White Gallery has extended its space to Koplin Del Rio during a season when Pioneer Square will welcome an international audience for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the Seattle Art Fair.
During the installation of the exhibition, I had the opportunity to spend time with the works in PINE for the first time as a collective body. Eirik spoke about the photographic process through which the images were conceived, emphasizing how essential light was in capturing the emotional essence of each tree carving. Our conversations revealed how carefully each light source was selected to correspond with the sentiment and atmosphere of the inscription itself.
In the photograph, Alex is Nuts, for example, the carving was discovered etched into the bark of a charred tree. To photograph it, Johnson created his own firelight source, allowing the long exposure image to emerge from darkness with a sense of heat and memory. In Timothy, a refracted spectrum light emphasizes the moss-covered surface of the tree, illuminating subtle textures and colors otherwise hidden in shadow.
I was equally struck by learning that the images in PINE were collected over many years and across varied geographies of the West Coast. Certain works originated from oak and eucalyptus trees carved throughout Los Angeles parks, including Elysian and Griffith Parks, as seen in Scratched Out Heart and Jen Bug, while others, such as Zoo, were photographed closer to home among the grove of trees near the picnic grounds at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo.
This time of year — with its prolonged daylight hours — often brings with it a nostalgia for the nocturne. I find myself recalling evenings spent outdoors by flashlight, moments gathered around firelight, or simply appreciating the glow that lingers in the summer sky. PINE inhabits this emotional and sensory terrain. Through nocturnal long exposures illuminated by moonlight, fire, sparklers, and prismatic light, Johnson transforms carved trees into luminous monuments of memory, appearing at once as lunar landscapes, prehistoric walls, and living archives of private sentiment.
Grounded in the intimate act of carving names, initials, song lyrics, and declarations into bark, PINE explores the universal impulse to leave a mark — to quietly insist, “I was here.”
“The photographs record my own performative response to these markings and the sentiments they hold.” — Eirik Johnson
In considering the pending fanfare of international visitors arriving for the FIFA World Cup Seattle matches, we felt PINE offered something deeply rooted in this place. Through its nostalgia, atmosphere, and references to youthful longing, the series evokes an essence of the Pacific Northwest that feels moody, musical, deeply personal, and shaped by the forests, histories, and emotional terrain of adolescence along the West Coast.
SAVE THE DATE
Artist Conversation: Artist Books, Publishing & Collaboration
Saturday, June 20, 2026 | 12 noon
In conversation with Eirik Johnson and Michelle Dunn Marsh, founder of Minor Matters, a collaborative publishing platform dedicated to engaging international audiences through artist books and publications. Minor Matters highlights underrepresented voices in contemporary art while preserving the present for the future through publishing.
BIO | EIRIK JOHNSON
Eirik Johnson (b. 1974, Seattle, WA) is a photographic artist whose conceptually driven work examines the intersections of environmental, social, and economic systems in the United States and abroad. Working across photobooks and immersive, sound-based installations, Johnson explores the marks and relationships formed through these complex entanglements.
Johnson received his BFA and BA from the University of Washington and his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Aperture Foundation (New York), the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), and the Henry Art Gallery (Seattle). His monographs include Road to Nowhere, Barrow Cabins (Ice Fog Press), PINE (Minor Matters Books), Sawdust Mountain (Aperture), and BORDERLANDS (Twin Palms Publishers). His work is held in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography (New York), and the Nevada Museum of Art (Reno).
