Dan Ferro

(b.1950; resides Grinnell, IA)

Dan Ferro spent two months in London’s Underground photographing as advertisements were torn down and the space left behind prepared for fresh posters. Using software to adjust these digitally-captured images and putting them to paper as pigment prints, Ferro’s efforts culminate in the fifteen abstract photographs of the Subtext series. The torn paper’s jagged edges and veins of color sometimes resemble cave paintings, sometimes mountain peaks, breaking waves, or dancing flames. While hard lines and soft textures build formal interest, angled perspectives give depth to the planar surface, further shifting the layered strips from their original context.

Ferro earned a BA in music at the University of California San Diego before going on to study photography at the Art Center College of Design. His work has been exhibited at the Grinnell Community Art Gallery, Iowa; Period Gallery Internationals, Omaha, Nebraska; and Fulton Street Gallery, Troy, New York. Ferro’s previous MPP portfolio, Cooked, is now part of the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s permanent collection.

Past Portfolio

These common everyday tools change as they are used. They remind us that we have an impact on our world and that we have the power to change many things in many ways. The images provide a fixed record of a visual exploration as well as food for thought. - Dan Ferro

Dan Ferro constructed the above photographs, part of a twelve-piece collection entitled Cooked, from cooking sheets and baking pans. Using a flatbed digital scanner, Ferro took direct scans of these cooking supplies, then made thousands of changes on his computer before printing them. The images are deliberately abstracted to create, as he puts it, a “depth of texture created by an ordinary human process.”

Ferro studied music at the University of California at San Diego before continuing on to study photography at the Art Center College of Design and with Michael Denny. Since then, he has received Special Recognition four times at International Exhibitionsat the Period Gallery in Omaha, NE, where his works have repeatedly been shown. His works have also appeared at the Fulton Street Gallery in New York and the Grinnell Community Art Gallery.