Transitions
Landscapes Embattled Between Past and Present
Landscapes Embattled Between Past and Present
I relocated to the far Western suburbs of Chicago eight years ago. At the time, it was the precise border between where the suburban sprawl ended, and the rural landscape began. Initially, the changes in the scenery were tumultuous and omnipresent. My constant commute though, eventually revealed that change in the suburban or rural landscape is not a vector, it's an ebb and flow. In a rough economy, projects start, stop, then nature creeps back in, and then, sometimes, work resumes. Some of these projects were scrapped and leveled.
Sometimes in the tumult, there is a curious pause in which the elements of how the landscape used to be, and what it will eventually look like, are present at the same moment. I try to find elements of both to create an image that, like a hologram, can tilt the viewer's focus back and forth between the ad hoc or natural state, and the soon to be imposed geometry of the suburban aesthetic.
Now I'm able to travel more widely, and this uneasy state exists in other places besides just the Midwest. What was and what is is suddenly more visible to me, in various states, everywhere I go.
Sometimes in the tumult, there is a curious pause in which the elements of how the landscape used to be, and what it will eventually look like, are present at the same moment. I try to find elements of both to create an image that, like a hologram, can tilt the viewer's focus back and forth between the ad hoc or natural state, and the soon to be imposed geometry of the suburban aesthetic.
Now I'm able to travel more widely, and this uneasy state exists in other places besides just the Midwest. What was and what is is suddenly more visible to me, in various states, everywhere I go.
