Archive for August, 2009

Excerpts from Cloud Series

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

0046a1998_1313.jpgA few images from a series I was working on in the fall of 2007 in Chiang Mai. One of a couple projects inspired by many hours spent out on my balcony on beautiful bright moonlit nights. It was during this period that, for the first time in my life, I found myself taking note of the cycle and movement of the moon. The moon’s pace provided perspective to the sometimes hectic speed of day-to-day life, and given my impending return to the US, a reminder as to the steady march of time.

I just rediscovered these images while preparing for a show in April. Printed as squares, and framed without mats, the images take on an almost modular quality, becoming interchangeable and rearrangeable, losing the very notion of time passing that originally drove me to create them in the first place.

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California Soda Shop

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Entering this Soda store in LA, I couldn’t help but think of Andreas Gursky’s iconic dollar store photos. Beyond its impressive stock, the place looked perfect– from the old supermarket meat cases that displayed candy bars to the peg board shelving.

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I love the way that packaging used to look. I don’t think this is so much a nostalgic thing, it’s just that there is something there that has been squashed by high concept ad agencies hired by multinational corporations to create campaigns using focus groups and online communities. I think the simplicity is often reflected in the packaging, with its hard graphic lines, solid patches of bright color, and boxy modern fonts.
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I found the sheer repetition in the packages mesmerizing.

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