Artist Talk with Gayle Neufeld of Alaska Wild: “Up Close and Personal – Photographing the Bears of McNeil River”

Friday, May 12, at 7 p.m. in the Bear Gallery

Join us in the Bear Gallery on Friday, May 12 at 7 p.m. for an artist talk with Vice President of ASONP, Gayle Neufeld, titled: “Up Close and Personal – Photographing the Bears of McNeil River.”

The McNeil River Sanctuary is adjacent to Katmai National Park and protects the world’s largest concentration of brown bears. There is a 10-person maximum at McNeil River, so visitors are able to intimately observe bears from a variety of sites at the creek, mudflats, sedge meadows, and falls. Bears congregate to feast on the chum salmon navigating the falls during their upstream journey to their spawning grounds. “Up Close and Personal – Photographing the Bears of McNeil River” is a collection of images that Neufeld has made at the Sanctuary.

Gayle Neufeld is an Alaska-based photographer and biologist who has spent the last 26 years photographic wildlife and landscapes in Alaska, Africa, and Central and South America. Her work has been featured throughout Alaska in the group exhibitions alaskaWILD and Rarefied Light, and solo shows in the Friendship Hall Art Gallery (NJ). She has earned multiple Alaskan and National awards.  Neufeld is the Vice President of both the Alaska Society of Outdoor and Nature Photographers and the Alaska Photographic Center.

This artist talk is free and open to the public thanks to support from our donors and members. For more information, visit fairbanksarts.org.


alaskaWILD 2023 is on view May 5–27, 2023, Monday–Saturday from 12–6 p.m. in the Bear Gallery. Friday, May 5, is the exhibition’s opening day, with a First Friday reception from 5–7 p.m.

More information about the exhibition can be found here.