The Welch School Gallery features simultaneous solo exhibitions by photographers Tanyth Berkeley (New York City) and Jimmy Fike (Avondale, Arizona). Berkeley's tender street portraits and Fike's images of ephemeral North American edible plants reverberate with themes of environmental justice, the climate crisis, and the commons.
Jimmy Fike was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1970. He earned a BA in Art from Auburn University and an MFA in Photography from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He works as a Residential Art Faculty Member at Estrella Mountain College in Avondale, Arizona.His photographic work endeavors to push the tradition of landscape photography into the realm of socially and ecologically engaged practice. His series on wild edible plants has been exhibited extensively across the USA, featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, and Mother Jones and accepted into the permanent collection of the George Eastman House Museum.
Tanyth Berkeley was born in Hollywood, California and raised in New York City. She earned her MFA in photography from Columbia University and holds a BA in photography and creative writing from City College New York. Her work was featured in New Photography 2007 at the Museum of Modern Art, and in exhibitions at the San Francisco Art Institute, Bellwether Gallery, Danziger Projects, Saatchi Gallery, as well numerous national and international exhibitions. Berkeley lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.