Hazy, Dreamlike Images Explore How Humans and Nature Coexist

Photograph included in the ‘Lynn Geesaman’ exhibition at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York, NY

“Damme, Belgium,” 1995

There are several words that could describe the work of Lynn Geesaman, but perhaps “magical” is the most apt. Across her decades-long practice, the late photographer, who died in 2020, pioneered a distinct visual language, rooted not in clarity, but in abstraction. Now, new life is breathed into her photographs through a definitive, career-spanning survey, currently on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York.

Simply titled Lynn Geesaman, the exhibition celebrates Geesaman’s command over atmosphere, mood, and setting throughout her impressionistic works. These photographs, many of which were taken in parks and formal gardens across Europe and the U.S., exist within hazy, dreamlike landscapes, resembling paintings more than they do static images. Geesaman achieved this unique, out-of-focus effect through diffusion, a printing process that blurred the edges of her photographs and created a soft dispersal of light. The technique echoes those used by the Pictorialist photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but Geesaman expands upon them, straddling observation and instinct all at once.

These sensorial, highly emotional qualities only enhance Geesaman’s thematic interests. The exhibition’s photographs aren’t simply romantic representations of gardens—they meditate upon how these spaces also harbor some sort of existential anxiety. Far from being wild, bountiful terrains, these manicured gardens imply a level of civilization, revealing humanity’s endless desire to contain and ultimately control that which seems unruly. That Geesaman’s images are blurry, rather than representational, suggests a contemporary distance between humans and “true” wilderness.

In that vein, people may be entirely absent in Geesaman’s images, but their presence is nevertheless felt. In these photographs, nature is orderly, proper, and almost artificial, an idealized form of organic expression. But Geesaman prompts us to question why this is: how, exactly, did these gardens come to be? Symmetrical hedges and neat rows of trees don’t often emerge naturally. Humans, then, had to modify and tame their silhouettes, a fact that echoes throughout Geesaman’s work, if only faintly.

It’s clear that Geesaman mastered the art of impressionistic photography throughout her lifetime. This exhibition celebrates that, while also elaborating upon her legacy. The photographer was best known for her color images, but, at Yancey Richardson, visitors encounter a selection of rarely seen black-and-white photographs. Unlike her color work, these monochromatic photographs are somewhat haunting, veering toward a more unsettling interpretation of our relationship to our natural surroundings.

“The formal landscapes that were often [Geesaman’s] subject are revealed to have potent emotional undercurrents, those that hint at the presence of hidden realities just beneath the surface of what is plainly visible,” the gallery notes. “The black and white photographs included in the project gallery of the exhibition attest to Geesaman’s power of poetic description and show the quality of her exposures and compositions before she applied diffusion.”

Lynn Geesaman is currently on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery through February 28, 2026.