Barton Lewis is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and photographer. His practice centers on photography of surfaces on the street and in the subway transformed by street artists and organic decay. Barton received a B.M. from The Juilliard School, and a B.A. in English literature from Columbia University. His films have been shown in film festivals and art galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Szczecin, Poland and elsewhere in the US and Europe. In 2018, after making short films, Lewis transitioned to making large-scale photographs. A monograph of his photographs, “The Many Pleasures: Found Art in New York City,” was published by Daylight Books in July 2024.
To purchase limited or open editions of Barton’s works, please visit his Shop.
Artist Statement
My photographs are reworkings of features of the street and subway transformed by human hand and organic decay. I recontextualize surfaces containing torn posters, sticker artists’ “slaps,” graffiti and other media temporally and spatially, isolating them from their surroundings and capturing them at a particular point in their continuous evolution and decay.
I almost never alter the pixels in my images, instead preserving the essence of a subject while making corrections to an image produced in less than ideal conditions. Somewhat paradoxically, I make “enhancements” to photographs of distressed or degraded surfaces which are themselves improvements of the original, “pristine” photograph(s) on which they are based.
My work has roots in the nouveau réalisme movement in 1960s France, whose practitioners mounted posters lifted from billboards onto canvas. These artists democratized art by disrupting ideas of where and how art could be made, blurring the line between public and private, gallery and street.
My photographs are composites of a single image photographed in sections, facilitating the reproduction of highly detailed, complex surfaces at scale (usually 4 ft. high x 6-20+ ft. wide).
Solo Show
2010 - Millennium Film Workshop, New York, NY
Group Shows
2025 - “De-Constructed,” Photographic Exploration Project, Loop - Raum Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2023 - “Memory and Motion," Gallery 85, New York, NY
2022 - “Winter Wonderland”, Front Room Gallery, Hudson, NY
2022 - “Artrepreneur: Curated”, The New York Artists Equity Association, New York, NY
2019 - “Street Shooting Around the World”, The Los Angeles Center of Photography
2017 - “Open (C)all: Truth,” BRIC, Brooklyn, NY
2017 - “Seeking Space 2017,” Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY
2013 - "Utopie distribuée," Galerie White Project, Paris, France
2012 - Larcade Gallery, Paris, France
2012 - StreeTVideOart, Art TV, Paris, France
Awards
2022 - Honorable Mention, Street Photography-Series, 17th Pollux Awards
Publications
2024 - The Many Pleasures: Found Art in New York City, monograph published by Daylight Books
2024 - UP magazine
2023 - The Harvard Business Review (May-Jun)
Fairs & Festivals
2022 - Indian Photo Festival, Hyderabad, India
2022 - Barcelona Foto Biennale, Barcelona, Spain
2022 - Affordable Art Fair, NY, NY
2021 - The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn, NY
2020 - stARTup Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA
2019 - Clio Art Fair, NY, NY
2014 - Szczecin European Film Festival, Szczecin, Poland
2012 - Portland Experimental Film Festival, Portland, OR
Education
B.A., Columbia University
B.M., The Juilliard School