Bremner Benedict
Biography
In 2001, Bremner Benedict began creating different photographic series, Distant Places, Gridlines, and Re-Imagining Eden that address the dissonant relationship we have with landscape and its impact on the environment. In 2015, Benedict began the series – Hidden Waters. It’s topic is the under-recognized desert springs and their relationship to water scarcity in the deserts of the West: Mojave, Sonoran, Great Basin, Chihuahuan, the Colorado Plateau and the Southern Rockies. This work is both an art and a research project. It envisions scientific data to present the land as something living and changing in a way that’s accessible and engaging to the general public. As long-term endeavor it involves visualizing characteristics and predicaments of desert springs and their aquifers, locating spring sites, obtaining permission to photograph on private land, meeting with ecologists, as well as extended road trips through the Western states.
Benedict’s photography has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Her work has garnered numerous awards including solo exhibitions at Griffin Museum of Photography, Philadelphia Print Center, Texas Woman’s University and Mayor’s Gallery, Boston City Hall; selected finalist awards includes Critical Mass Top 200, 2019, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Silver Eye Gallery, Forward Thinking Museum. She received a: Griffin Museum of Photography Legacy Award, a Philadelphia Museum of Art Purchase Award, a San Francisco International Photo Exhibition Gold Medal, two Puffin Foundation Grants and a Museum of Northern Arizona Artist Residency among others.
Portfolios of her projects are in collections at Fidelity Art Boston, Center for Photography, Tucson, New Mexico Museum of Art, Decordova Museum of Art and Sculpture, Lincoln, MA, Fogg Museum at Harvard, George Eastman Museum of Film and Photography as well as private collections. In 2020 work from her on-going project – Hidden Waters – was chosen for, New England Regional Exhibit of the FENCE and Museum of Northern Arizona’s exhibit about water in the west in 2020.