A West Virginia photographer uses nature as his darkroom.
written by CHRISTY PERRY TUOHEY
photographed by JOHN RYAN BRUBAKER
IT’S NOT A FIGURE OF SPEECH TO SAY that West Virginia visual artist John Ryan Brubaker immerses himself in his art. Literally. He boldly jumps into the water.
A Michigan native, Brubaker moved to Thomas in 2011. He took note of the state’s natural resources and began integrating them into his work. Crushed coal on canvas. Raindrops on sunsensitive paper. Photos doused in acidic river water.
Using 19th-century development techniques, Brubaker’s works explore our connections to nature. “I do most of my analog printing with the cyanotype and Van Dyke processes,” he explains. “So a combination of the sun, the river, and the rain become more of a darkroom for me than a classical photographic lab.”
His photo project On Confluence uses North Fork Blackwater River water. Acidic abandoned coal mine drainage enters the river, making it too toxic for wildlife or human consumption—but its pH levels are suitable for developing photos. Brubaker walked through the metalladen riverbed, assured by water quality experts that his body could withstand limited exposure to the aluminum and iron drainage, and dipped chemically treated paper in the waters, then used sunlight to reveal the images. “I particularly like that each print has been in the river, and so the photographic object itself has a physical connection with the subject of the images,” he says.
Brubaker also uses his camera to record nature walks, creating abstracts using multiple exposures taken from fixed locations. “It started as an attempt to capture a place—more than just the one-directional perspective of a scene,” he says.
In addition to photography, Brubaker dabbles in mixed media, cranking coal chunks through an old-fashioned meat grinder. He mixes the black dust with gel medium to create textural pieces. He also catches raindrops on chemically treated photo paper to record water and sunlight.
You can view John Ryan Brubaker’s art at the Invisible and Gradient Projects galleries in Thomas. He also has two solo shows opening in 2026, one in Cumberland, Maryland, and one in Greece. jrbrubaker.com, @jrbrubaker on IG
READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S WINTER 2025 ISSUE
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