NEW YORK, NY.- For his ninth exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, the British photographer Saul Fletcher is showing 16 new photographs created in his current home base of Berlin.

Fletcher’s work transcends photography; his studio wall acts as a canvas on which he paints with broad, lush strokes. Figures and symbols are drawn in rough black line. Found objects—sticks, shoes, and even an umbrella—become elements and subjects in his compositions. As these iterations of the wall are composed and photographed, an intimate light permeates. When human subjects appear, the painted wall is their backdrop; equally composed for and around the person.

These deeply personal works contain symbols and artifacts from Fletcher’s past. A self-taught photographer who worked for many years loading coal on the docks of Hull, the raw, visceral surfaces contained in each photograph seem to mirror and mine his own history and psychology as well as that of such a historically charged place as Berlin. The very nature of these works is surprisingly intimate, granting the viewer access to a normally sacrosanct space, the studio of an artist. Traces of his process appear as dust and detritus. Contained in each of these small-format, intricately sized works are magnitudes of emotion and psychological depth.

This exhibition coincides with the release of Saul Fletcher, a major monograph published by Inventory Press that reproduces more than 300 of the artist’s photographs, with essays by Ralph Rugoff and Kirsty Bell. Fletcher will also be included in a four-person exhibition, Let Me Consider it From Here, at the Renaissance Society, Chicago, on view from November 17, 2018 - January 27, 2019.

In addition to solo gallery exhibitions in Europe and New York, Fletcher has participated in numerous important international exhibitions, including: Doubles, Dobros, Pliegues, Pares, Twins, Mitades, The Warehouse, Dallas,Texas (2017), corpo.gesto.postura, curated by Simone Menegoi, Artissima, Turin, Italy (2016), Stanze/Rooms, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2014), The São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil ( 2012), Saints and Sinners, The Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University, Waltham, MA (2009), as well as in exhibitions at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (between 2008 and 2011).