“Real Spaces”, is a series of images that reimagines the interstices of domestic and urban spaces with nods to the history of photography. Contrasting photographic imposters with contrived images, this series consists of models that portray similar subjects explored by renowned photographers such as Gordon Matta-Clark, Lee Friedlander and Robert Adams, and Lynne Cohen. The task of building a model to emulate an existing image, and then photographing it becomes absurdly humorous, as it attempts to mock reality. Juxtaposed to these reproductions are pure invented structures, modeled after my own drawings. By contrasting replicas of previously photographed places with concocted ones, I’m subverting attention and unraveling truths. The fantastical and the conventional blend, making the ordinary, extraordinary.
This project began shortly after I moved to New York, where the city’s endless skyline and ceaseless cycle of construction and demolition confronted me with a sense of spatial instability. I became interested in the illusion of permanence that architecture promises, and the contradictory impermanence built into the urban landscape. By reconstructing specific images or inventing new ones, I use photography to question the meaning of ownership and our desire to possess space—even if only as an image.
Each photograph begins as a hand-built model, constructed from humble materials like cardboard, tape, and hot glue; unsophisticated materials that retain a certain cogency and drabness when captured in a photograph. These unpretentious components aid the viewer in feeling the uncanniness in the picture. By assembling scenes from both observation and imagination, I’m attempting to excavate the quiet magic of the mundane—to reveal how even the most overlooked spaces are shaped by human folly, fantasy, and desire.
