artist statement

buildings / nature / wires

I set out to take photos that captured the feeling of isolation, which can be a hard thing to come by in an urban and densely populated area such as Charleston. I wanted to take photos that showed a different side of Charleston, one that isn’t typical and famously touristy. What I didn’t anticipate was that these photos – although taken in Charleston – all appear as if they could’ve been taken anywhere.

Originally, I started by photographing windows. Windows are fascinating, because we completely take them for granted and don’t give them a second glance. We don’t consciously notice the window itself; we simply look through it to focus on what it’s showing or hiding.

At first glance, all of these photos appear to be ordinary landscape pictures. Upon further inspection, you will notice that there are three components in each photo. Each photo contains each of the following: building, nature, and wires. Because Charleston is so susceptible to flooding, all the power lines are above ground, rather than buried underground. I realized that like windows, power lines and telephone wires are things that we no longer consciously notice, despite the abundance of them all around us. You could spend forever trying to count all of the telephone poles and wires downtown, but while you’re walking down the street, they aren’t something that you notice. The same goes for nature and buildings. Unless they’re unusual or eye-catching somehow, we don’t even notice that we’re noticing them. All of these things – buildings, nature, and wires – have been created and built and destroyed, and it’s quite strange to me, to think we’ve become so used to them that we only notice them subconsciously.

I also wanted to show the relationship between humans and nature; to remind us of, and make us think about the impact we have had on nature – past, present and future. This series is meant to make you think about the future of our planet. What’s going to happen if we continue to build and expand as we are currently, with no regard for nature?

These photos were intentionally arranged in a grid of different sizes and formats to catch the interest of the viewer, and hung plainly with mat pins to remind us that art can and should be accessible to everyone. I wanted to hang as many photos as possible (rather than the typical six or eight) to hopefully make you just a little bit more observant, and to remind you that these three things are everywhere – despite the fact that we hardly ever notice them at all.