Nicholas Conbere’s artwork presents invented landscapes composed of multiple layers of drawings and photos to build complex, dreamlike panoramas that provoke thought on relationships between the natural and man-made worlds. Trained as an illustrator, Conbere relies on classical perspective, but often alters the reality of a space. Images from various times and places and of various scales share one picture plane—a small airplane flies behind an oversized plastic bottle and a modern beach umbrella is pitched on an abandoned cobblestone road. In this exhibition of drawings and prints, he aims to create a discordant, humorous, and lyrical portrait of a contemporary American environment.

His process begins by sketching and photographing various locations. He later uses these images to develop finished artwork in the form of etchings, photolithographs, and large drawings. To do this, he assembles the sketches and photographs, overlaying and re-contextualizing them to crete scenes that allude to the multiplicity and complexity of moments in an environment. Printmaking processes are used to build the layers of imagery and also to add incidental surface textures, which contribute a sense of history to the layers. The tiered presentation encourages viewers to make mental links between what they see and places they have experienced.

Conbere received an MFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York, as well as an MFA in Printmaking recently completed at the University of Minneapolis. His work has been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions in New York and Minnesota.