In this body of work, I examine the suburban American landscape, which, despite its facade of uniformity, solidity, and formidability, reveals itself to be tenuous and slippery upon closer inspection. I am interested in how the seemingly mundane terrain of strip malls, parking lots, and warehouses facilitates moments of surprise, wonder, and mystery. I examine the construction, deconstruction, and ongoing cycles of repurposing that continually reshape this landscape.
I am especially interested in spaces that, through artifice, invite us to suspend disbelief and attempt to transcend the ordinary landscape. However, rather than simply reinforce an illusion, I aim to capture the precise instant in which the illusion begins to falter by revealing its inextricability from the surrounding landscape. I strive to maintain a certain distance from my subject from which I can advocate for its majesty not only in spite of but by virtue of its firm anchoring in the landscape it seeks to transcend. A sense of majesty born from its context within the ordinary is far more complicated and fickle than that achieved through a complete suspension of disbelief, but I also find it to be far more interesting. I am invested in the idea that the exposé of an illusion can point us in the direction of more complex truths beyond mere irony. I strive to use photography, not merely as a tool for debunking, but to capture the strange beauty and capacity for illumination in even unsuccessful attempts to transcend the mundane.