Today, 49 Shades of Grey and Other Works
ADA Gallery, Richmond, Virginia
November 2016
From 2011 to 2013, I traveled across the USA to capture footage of incomplete, foreclosed, and abandoned subdivisions throughout 49 States—resulting in an archive of source material that uses landscape to visualize the abstract nature of the 2008 economic collapse. From 2014 to 2015, I transformed selections from this archive into 4 interrelated projects: Grave Architecture, Today, 49 Shades of Grey, Death 24x a Second, and Aloha.
Conceptually, these projects reference the work of various artists who have been engaged in documenting the United States at key points in history. Of particular interest are Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the Great Depression, Robert Adams’ photographs of human-altered landscapes, and Stephen Shore’s series of North American travel photographs entitled Uncommon Places. While influenced by the trajectory of American photography, my particular interest revolves around the historical notion of suburban environments as symbols of American prosperity. Collectively, these works serve as a contradiction to that notion and serve to document a very different contemporary condition -- a quintessential American landscape instantaneously transformed by the complex infrastructure of global economics in the twenty-first century.
ADA Gallery, Richmond, Virginia
November 2016
From 2011 to 2013, I traveled across the USA to capture footage of incomplete, foreclosed, and abandoned subdivisions throughout 49 States—resulting in an archive of source material that uses landscape to visualize the abstract nature of the 2008 economic collapse. From 2014 to 2015, I transformed selections from this archive into 4 interrelated projects: Grave Architecture, Today, 49 Shades of Grey, Death 24x a Second, and Aloha.
Conceptually, these projects reference the work of various artists who have been engaged in documenting the United States at key points in history. Of particular interest are Dorothea Lange’s photographs of the Great Depression, Robert Adams’ photographs of human-altered landscapes, and Stephen Shore’s series of North American travel photographs entitled Uncommon Places. While influenced by the trajectory of American photography, my particular interest revolves around the historical notion of suburban environments as symbols of American prosperity. Collectively, these works serve as a contradiction to that notion and serve to document a very different contemporary condition -- a quintessential American landscape instantaneously transformed by the complex infrastructure of global economics in the twenty-first century.