If we can see the grace in quotidian landscapes and our everyday routines then perhaps we can begin to make better choices. Gary Green, Elm City, 2015. All images: © & courtesy the artist. BEN LISLEOne of the things that strikes me first when looking at these photos is this tension between a thoroughly human […]

Whereas I feel the photographs have a propensity to document, the paintings have no such obligation and as such they use the information in the photographs quite freely and make whatever is needed of the images. There is much re-drawing of the space, re-articulating, such as stepping back to get a slightly more distant view, […]

So much had already been said and photographed about Detroit’s abandonment and the so-called images of “ruin porn” that fetishized the cities misfortune, that when I first went back to explore my hometown in 2010, I began to question the motives of those who had preceded me and their intentions. After all, there were still […]

Every photographer I know, at some point in their career, has studied Walker Evans’ photographs of Hale County, Alabama made during the Great Depression. Before I made photographs, I looked to his with an almost mystical wonder and curiosity. The photographs endure as the pinnacle of what photography can and should be, as Evans himself […]

During this period, 1995 to 2000, that I created “Outland,” my work gradually shifted from documenting the world to transforming it through the camera and the deeper parts of my mind. At the same time I began to view myself as an artist/photographer rather than a photographer. The photographs came about as a result of […]

“It felt like a discovery for me—and I liked the idea of a kind of cyclical studio process where the object and subject get conflated.” Erin O’Keefe discusses a photograph from her series, “The Flatness.” © Erin O’Keefe. The Flatness #11, 2013, Inkjet print on matte rag paper. Image courtesy of the artist. This photograph […]

…we only see what we want to see. Some say we only see what we already know. But I think more is possible, that we can be opened to deeper meanings, because all understanding comes through metaphor. Ken Schles, Drowned In Sorrow, 1984, from Invisible City. © Ken Schles. Image courtesy of the artist and […]

…I started to make portraits of artist friends in their studios. I had a curiosity and need to observe how they were setting up their workspaces and what they were surrounding themselves with. I wondered how they spent their days. @ Laurie Lambrecht, Roy with Reflections on the Prom, 1990. Image courtesy of the artist. […]

I was tired of feeling so disconnected from my life and myself. As I was cutting up strawberries to serve with lunch I noticed that one of the berries stood out from the rest. I tried to stay on task but I couldn’t take my eyes off this single piece of unripe fruit. @ 2014 […]

For seventeen years I have made work that consists of sequences in order to talk about the passage of time while looking at things that don’t change much at all. For me, rhythm has always played an important role in photography. From the rocking of a developing tray, to a staccato exhibition installation, to the […]