• + Gallery
• + Biography
• + Artist's Statement
• + Contact Nolan Preece

Great Basin Exteriors // A Photographic Survey
Exhibit Venues & Dates

• Truckee Meadows Community College – Artown 2010 (premier), Reno, NV
  July – Aug. 2010
• Northeastern Nevada Museum, Elko, NV
  Sept. 1 – Oct. 27, 2010
• Fernley City Hall, Fernley, NV
  Nov. 4 – Dec. 30, 2011
• Pershing County Library, Lovelock, NV
  Jan. 7 – March 4, 2011
• Eureka Courthouse Gallery, Eureka, NV
  March 14 – May 9, 2011
• Historic 5th Street School, Las Vegas, NV
  May 17 – July 12, 2011
• Marjorie Barrick Museum, Las Vegas, NV
  July 20 – Sept. 14, 2011
• Sierra Nevada College Library, Incline Village, NV
  Sept. 22 – Nov. 17, 2011
• Western Nevada College, Fallon, NV
  Nov. 25 – Jan. 20, 2012
• Humboldt County Library, Winnemucca, NV
  Jan. 30 – March 26, 2012
• Lake Tahoe Community College, The Haldan Art Gallery, South Lake Tahoe, CA
  April 12 – June 15, 2012
• St. George Art Museum, St. George, UT
  June 20 – Sept. 8, 2012

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT

The Great Basin, the vast, arid region between California's Sierra Nevada Mountains and Utah's Wasatch Range, encompasses the state of Nevada and parts of Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming.

Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey examines loss, change, and abandonment in the American West through the lenses of three photographers: Daniel Cheek, Adam Jahiel, and Nolan Preece. Each photographer focuses on subjects that are changing in or disappearing from the Great Basin.

This exhibit, organized by the Nevada Arts Council, is part of the Nevada Touring Initiative – Traveling Exhibition Program, and is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Nevada State Legislature and Western States Arts Federation. The Nevada Arts Council is a division of the Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs.

This site is your online interpretation center and companion to the traveling exhibition of Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey. We invite you to join the conversation and share your thoughts, reflections, and feelings on the evocative images presented here.

NOLAN PREECE
www.nolanpreece.net

Nolan Preece received his MFA in photography and printmaking from Utah State University in 1980. Working in a range of media including photography and intaglio printmaking, Preece employs both traditional and experimental techniques, allowing for an exploration of new ideas through what he describes as the intuitive balance between process and concept. His landscape portfolios of the United States and the West, as well as his Great Basin wall series, are now documents of a changing environment that is rapidly disappearing. His portfolios include platinum, silver gelatin, chromogenic, cibachrome and digital prints. His work has appeared in more than 100 juried, invitational and solo exhibitions throughout the country and is included in 24 permanent collections including those of the Nicolaysen Museum, Casper, WY; Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV; Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Logan, UT; Print Club, Albany, NY; and Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT. Preece was the photography professor and gallery director at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno.

NOLAN PREECE
ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Any statement about my work would have to include my father and his mentor—Ansel Adams. My father read Ansel's books in the early fifties. I was five when I developed my first print in 1953. We always had a darkroom in the house. I remember well my father setting up his 4x5 camera and waiting patiently for the clouds or light to change. During winter months while living in northern Utah, photographing with large format cameras was next to impossible because of the subzero temperatures. I started experimenting in the darkroom in order to keep busy with photography. My chemical innovations of the "Chemogram" and "Nolangram" were created in opposition to my fine art camerawork and started a split oeuvre that persists today. One side of this split oeuvre in my work ultimately informs the other and vice verse. Those of us who have lived here for some time in the Great Basin have come to love the spacious beauty, hidden wonders and historical richness of this place we call home. As a photographer, I have tried to search out the deeper layers of meaning I find in this Nevada environment and portray them in my work. This has not been an easy task; a picture is an elusive thing. The realization that Nevada is a complex place having many interpretations was an inevitable outcome of my search. As with any venture into art, the experience can be the richest part of the journey.

—Nolan Preece

SPONSORS

Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey is part of the Nevada Arts Council's Nevada Touring Initiative's Traveling Exhibition Program. Support for the exhibit, catalogue and this website has been provided by the Western States Arts Federation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Nevada Arts Council is a division of the Nevada State Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs.

Special thanks to the Darrell Armuth and Donna Hellwinkel Collection for the loan of their Adam Jahiel platinum prints for this exhibition.

RESOURCES

Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey is part of the Nevada Arts Council's Nevada Touring Initiative's Traveling Exhibition Program (TEP).

Designed to provide high-quality visual arts exhibits to communities throughout Nevada for an affordable fee, TEP features an array of subjects and art forms, ranging from traditional Washoe basketry to landscape painting and contemporary sculpture. TEP sponsors receive installation and pick-up, insurance, publicity materials and Gallery Notes for each exhibit. Download the Gallery Notes for Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey.

A catalogue for Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey is available for $15; please call the Nevada Arts Council at 775.687.6680. This 60-page full-color deluxe publication presents the work of photographers Adam Jahiel, Daniel Cheek and Nolan Preece. The catalogue also includes an insightful essay by noted art critic, Kirk Robertson.