Duncan Oja

Duncan Oja is a woodworker and photographer based in San Francisco. He was trained in traditional furniture making while living in upstate New York and after moving back home to his native California began working at a small lumber mill.

Duncan's work combines classic American furniture traditions with modern, experimental design. He draws inspiration from different stages of the process itself: natural organic forms, found textures, tool marks, and byproducts of the production process.

His photographs often explore strange structures and forms found in the landscape. In his “Old Growth” series he focuses on snags, standing tree trunks left behind in suburban lawns. The trees are long gone, cut up and carried off. The pillars left behind feel empty and missing, but also take on a strange and beautiful new presence: blank totems and monuments of absence.

Duncan received a B.A. in photography from Bard College in 2011. Since then he has shown work in solo and group exhibitions at galleries including the Southeast Center for Photography, Greenville, SC; Newspace Center for Photography, Portland OR; ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL; First Sreet Gallery, NYC; the Camera Club of New York; and the Harvey Milk Photo Center, San Francisco, CA. His work has been published in Black and White Magazine, F-Stop, The Photo Review, and New City Art.