Shadow Boxes: 1996-2000
This body of work uses photographic imagery depicting archetypal views of the Western landscape which is generic and yet still powerful in its evocation of the glories of Nature. These prints were given away as souvenirs by several oil companies in the late forties and customers were encouraged to visit all the sites in order to obtain the entire collection.
Cut into these majestic landscapes are ground plans from historic European gardens selected for their obsessive ordering of the natural terrain. The cut prints are presented in shadowbox frames to allow the shadow of the cutout design to be cast on the wall and further impose the pattern on the architecture. The title of each piece incorporates the location of both the landscape image and the garden.
In general, all of these works are a consideration of the relationship of desire and fantasy which permeates our attitudes concerning Nature. This tendency to mythicize Nature crosses boundaries of time and culture in a search for an idealized place which is always absent and never to be found. Both historic garden plans and contemporary scenic imagery represent a mediation between culture and nature in the construction of places and images whose symbolic significance manifests this search for Paradise and a retreat from the cares of the world. But Paradise, as a place, is beyond reach and yet always longed for, pursued and evoked by culture, often reflecting a society’s basic beliefs, power structures and values at a given point in time.
