Beyond physiognomy Gary Briechle’s photographs infer a poignant darkness so beautiful and recognizable, that I cannot look away from their elegant gaze. The photographs startle me with their brilliant darkness and silver light, which is most often trained upon human flesh.

A Mother’s daguerrian stare while her child sleeps in folds of cloth is an image of repose and disquiet. The darkness of ink deep under the skin, human teeth askew like raw ivory. There is a fallen fence of a garden long dead as ash. The arch and whiteness of the fence hold my own gaze. A precarious silhouette of a man in a liminal state neither here nor there, or the stitches carved into flesh are the visions that he offers us and we of course engage them by looking back. Gary’s images are caught between two worlds, one that is mortal and wounded and another beautiful and luminous, resembling a mirror of mercury.

The reverence of light by this photographer is so skillful and he is so aware of the human frailties, which make us what we are, that his private world becomes our own.

The silvery light and human darkness in these works will leave a mark upon your senses.