Traditional Artist Statement
10 Views from Car Window

Putting things in a sequence suggests a narrative, there is no way of avoiding it. Starting this sequence with an abstract view of inside of a car, and ending it with a pensive portrait, the narrative suggests something straight ahead—a literal journey in a car from point a to point b. The colours of the sky, the presence of prairie vista, and signifiers of life around Edmonton—of freight trains, industrial sites, hay bales, suggests that all of these photos could be taken in one day, from dawn to dusk. They appear quotidian in the most literal sense.

I sequenced these photos after looking at two books, taken twenty years apart: American Surfaces by Stephen Shore and Sticks and Stones by Lee Friedlander. Looking at the unity of imagery in both of these photos, and the implicit narrative created, one assumes that the psycho-geographic landscape of Tulsa, Tampa, and Tucson. What mattered were the isolation, exhaustion, hunger and boredom that sometimes happens while traveling through those cities, and an attempt towards some kind of banal transcendence, at the same time.

Alberta thinks of itself as special when it comes to landscapes, there is more space, bigger skies, more beauty, more permanence...but there is nothing like that, and stuck in the vehicles these photos were taken. I’ll tell you the truth, the ten photos taken here, were taken over the period of 8 months, in 4 separate vehicles, over 600 kilometers. The emotional and social narrative implied is not the same as the history of the photos taken. The ambiguity in that seeking, I think is important, because it infests not only how artists take pictures, but also how vacation photos are taken and how news photos are taken. Be careful of narratives.

I have included a more poetic, more personal, narrative about taking pictures out of vehicles, to tie into the more theoretical one here.

Installation Notes:
10 digital photographs printed commercially, framed individually in black laminate or steel. The pictures should be installed at roughly eye level, in a straight line, to imply an almost cinematic narrative. Each image is 8.5x11 inches, unframed.