Artist Statement:
Over the past few years I have explored the American landscape using digital photography to record both the hidden and obvious remnants of the changing environment and culture. America has changed significantly on the last fifty years since the construction of the Interstate highway system.
Small town centers have been abandoned to new commercial developments near the expressways and bypasses surrounding them. Rural areas are being transformed into a bland sameness with borrowed architectural themes that don’t reflect the unique sense of regional identity. Our older industrial centers are also changing as manufacturing and repair facilities move to other areas and even abroad. Abandonment and reuse is a recurring theme in my images.
Two cross-country trips in 2004 and 2007 served as the inspiration for much of the images that have been created. The approach to these landscapes and buildings is to distill what first appear to be mundane scenes into images of complexity and visual interest. The goal is to transform timeworn vernacular buildings and roadside landscapes into complex visual expressions that enhance and transform the subjects and celebrate the deep beauty inherent in the commonplace.
“We photographers deal in things that are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance that can make them come back again” — Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer, 1952
