Patricia Galagan

Photography
>
Patricia Galagan

Patricia Galagan is a fine-art photographer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose work focuses on the evolving relationship between nature and environmental change. Drawn to photography from an early age, she has developed a distinct approach that combines visual storytelling with documentary insight.

Her recent work examines environmental upheaval in the landscape, using light and form to engage viewers with pressing ecological issues. As an artist-in-residence at Bandelier National Monument, she photographed endangered juniper trees, presenting them as ancestral portraits to highlight their vulnerability to climate change.

Galagan and her late husband, Philip Metcalf, co-authored Fire Ghosts, a large-format photography book documenting the destruction and regrowth of a New Mexico forest after wildfire. Environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne described it as “a gripping poster for the Pyrocene.”
Her work continues to explore the landscapes and people of New Mexico, including Native American rodeo cowboys and the region’s distinctive flora and fauna. She has also photographed extensively in Cuba and the American Southwest, with her images exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including in Switzerland and Cuba.