THE GOWANUS PORTFOLIO

(2010—2017)

This work bookends Silent Passage, which was photographed on a lake in Sweden in the 1980's. Then working from a rowboat, facing the timelessness of pristine nature; here in a canoe, facing a resurgent nature amidst urban decay.

I have been struck by how the depiction of the natural world that surrounds us has evolved over time. From an idealized representation of nature we now have depictions of actual places, identified by place and time —what we call Landscape. Photography is the perfect medium for presenting such a Landscape. Inherently real, it organizes space and records time.

But as we become aware of how this idea of Landscape is a construct, Nature reemerges as a separate concept, and we realize that Nature is the reality, while Landscape is but one way of representing it. In this continuum of photographs I try to counter the one-point perspective of photography in order to convey that reality of Nature independently of the construct of landscape.

A set of 15 gelatin silver prints, sequenced to form a 7 x 136 inch long installation.

Installation view. Marquee Projects. 2022