Dan Biferie

Dan Biferie is a documentary photographer who has exhibited over 150 times throughout the United States. His works remain in the collections of almost a dozen established art museums including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Middle Tennessee State University, Mint Museum in Charlotte, New Orleans Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach, Florida, Tampa Museum of Art, and UCR/California Museum of Photography. Dan has a background serving as the Chairperson of the School of Photography and Media Studies at Daytona State College as well as the founding Director of Southeast Museum of Photography.

Ranging from depictions of aged churches to small town portraiture, Dan Biferie captures the sociological structure of a particular place, which serves as a documentary worthy of preservation at the Smithsonian. His documentary approach to photography typically entails high contrast, high saturation with immense detail of his subjects containing compositions which are as masterful as they are mysterious and haunting. Through these angles we are transported to a world where time slows down in rural America in depictions of both vintage as well as dilapidated structures. Dan Biferie does not capture models but rather characters. His figurative subjects tend to be random, ordinary people he meets out in the country. Dan does not hide their flaws but instead accentuates them to reveal the grit and character of a region, such as portraying a man on a storefront porch with rotting teeth or an aged woman with a modest, conservative dress and glasses in an interior.

In both his depictions of architecture as well as portraits, Dan portrays the silent story of ‘fly-over’ America, a portion of the nation which often becomes overlooked by the prestige of the coasts. One of the reasons Dan has received such incredible recognition for his work would be because of his ability to capture the raw nature of his subjects as well as reveal hidden landscapes, interiors, and churches which stand in a state of quietness. Depicting both dilapidated structures, such as fallen apart interiors and aged architecture, along with pristine, grand protestant churches, there remains a narrative about revealing character through both flaws and compositional integrity. 

Man with Doll, Ohio (pictured above) depicts what appears to be a working class home. The man portrayed sits on a dilapidated couch with an unironed, severely wrinkled shirt and trousers, as if he just came home from work. With a working class aesthetic, Dan reveals the man’s character through the doll placed on the opposite end of the couch. The toy could belong to his children and seems to be often used as the doll is undressed. Between the man’s unseen children, rugged appearance, and his solemn gaze into the distance, the photograph reveals a great sense of character of an unidealized figure.

Dan Biferie can be described as a riveting photographer who documents the important yet unglamorous aspects of American history. His compositions are complex and reveal distorted angles as if we were waking up and walking out our door to reveal a real slice of Americana. The deep working class aesthetic, rugged terrain, interiors as well as architecture of his subjects as well as the complexity in Dan’s ability to enhance the character of his subjects, conveys a photographer who relishes in capturing the hidden civilizational stories tucked away in the corners of America’s often overlooked regions in rural and suburban locations.

https://danbiferie.myportfolio.com