For their summer exhibition, Obscura Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will present work by New Zealand photographer Niki Boon. Opening June 21, Niki Boon: Summer is the artist’s first solo show in the U.S. and debuts photographs documenting her family’s rural, home-schooled life in Marlborough, New Zealand.

Through wide angle black and white photographs full of contrast, Boon shows the wild and free lifestyle of children, nurtured by a country environment. They children climb trees, play with animals, and run barefoot. Video games, TV and tablets are are out of sight and out of mind, except for a computer used as an educational tool.

Boon began photographing her four children as soon as they were born, but the work became more focused after she and her husband decided to pursue an alternative education for their kids. “I wanted to explore what childhood is, and what it is to grow up, and for this reason I choose to also show images which may depict the loneliness and solitude of childhood, the pain and hurt that is also experienced,” says Boon, adding, “I also love the pictures that really depict the freedom that childhood allows.”

Summer
By Niki Boon
Obscura Gallery
June 21-July 27, 2019