A raven is usually one bird in one photograph. In Shane Brown’s work, the same bird can appear again and again until its flight becomes a pattern of its own. The shape is still recognizable. What changes is the way that single moment fills the frame.

That raven is one of the transformations described in Wilderness of Mirrors, Brown’s new exhibition at Tulsa Artist Fellowship. The silhouette of a pronghorn radiates outward in another composition. Elsewhere, the phases of an eclipse form a circle of light and shadow. Subjects we know from the natural world begin to look unexpectedly geometric.

Brown starts with photographs of the American West: its wildlife, its landscapes, and what happens overhead. He uses repetition, rotation, and digital composition to build intricate arrangements from those images. Some recall mandalas. The photograph remains the starting material, but its repeated shapes can become as compelling as the animal or place that first caught the camera’s attention.

The subjects go well beyond that raven. Tulsa Artist Fellowship also names Tsé Bit’a’i, known as Shiprock, along with Fajada Butte, Monument Valley, waterfowl, and a supermoon. In these works, Brown returns to a real scene by arranging parts of its image in new ways. There is something to recognize and something unfamiliar to untangle.

Brown has spent more than two decades working with a camera, much of that time documenting the contemporary American West. Born in Oklahoma, he is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and was raised primarily within Cherokee and Osage Nations. His earlier projects explored the region’s landscapes, its complicated histories, and the stories people attach to both.

One of those projects, In the Territories, examined Oklahoma’s cultural landscape and appeared in a 2022–23 exhibition at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. Brown has also worked in film, including as a set photographer on Reservation Dogs and as a cinematographer on projects with director Sterlin Harjo. His documentary work has long involved looking closely at what is already there.

With Wilderness of Mirrors, those photographed moments are given a different kind of life. A moving bird becomes a field of repeated forms; an eclipse becomes a circular structure. Brown’s years of observing places and creatures remain visible in the raw material. His unusual way of arranging that material gives the work its surprise.

The exhibition marks the culmination of Brown’s 2024–2026 Tulsa Artist Fellowship. It opened October 29 and runs through January 2, 2027, at the Fellowship’s Flagship gallery, 112 N. Boston Avenue in downtown Tulsa. Admission is free. The published gallery hours are Thursday through Saturday, noon–6 p.m., and First Fridays, 6–9 p.m. Check with the gallery before a holiday visit for any schedule changes.

The raven is still a raven. But after Brown repeats its image, it has become something a single photograph of a bird could never quite be. That is the discovery waiting inside Wilderness of Mirrors.