dream home

Dream Home consists of an accumulation of images made up from a number of interrelated projects; each image has been conceived, constructed, photographed and exhibited by exploiting and collapsing traditional modes of representation through a merging of tableau and documentary photography. This visual paradox is inspired by ideas of framing through a direct response to production shots of artists like Stan Douglas, which demonstrate not only how elaborate works are made, but also how dependent photography and film is in terms of what they include and exclude through framing. These sets show signs of artifice and labour in an attempt to consider digital technology and its influence on photography at the turn of 20th century. While the illusions I create would be dramatically simplified by using photo imaging programs I have chosen to construct them by hand in an attempt to implicate the artists role for the viewer while he navigates these large scale ‘traditional’ colour photographs.

These photographs explore constructed ideals surrounding identity and place through examining our relationship with domestic interiors and the landscape. Following the strategy of theatre and film set building I construct flats (interchangeable 4’ x 8’ wall sections) that are modeled after mass-market interior designs. The flats are constructed in my studio (each with a window or opening) and finished with prescribed pallets of colour matched designer paint, prefabricated moldings, and “ready to hang art” as the final decorative touch. Once completed in the studio, the flats are then broken down and driven into the “affected landscape.” The role of the flats in these images is that of referent as well as framing device. Possibly framing in what Penny Cousineau-Levine refers to in Faking Death as “a metaphoric portal into another world, or establish(ing) a dialectic between a reality that is ‘here’ and one that is ‘elsewhere’.”