"Mobile Home" Photos by Peter Garfield

Peter Garfield, "Trespass", 1997, C-print40 x 30 inches

Peter Garfield, "Split-Level", 1995, C-print40 x 30 inches

Peter Garfield, "Communique", 1996, C-print40 x 30 inches

The latest drawing I've completed (below) adds a little lyricism and movement to the composition of my house drawings. I was researching different art/artists that have also added movement or drama to such stiff subjects as housing divisions. In the late 90s, Peter Garfield took photos of small model homes in midair. The results can be humorous, but present a darker or somewhat confusing undercurrent. In an essay about these photos, Alexander Uhr wrote, "In the absence of any definitive answers, I was left with an alternately thrilling and discomfiting sensation — thrilled at seeing a remarkable event, discomfited that I could not interpret exactly what I saw." The first time I saw one of these photographs in a magazine, I immediately thougt of the Wizard of Oz - After viewing them in a post-9-11 world where horiffic explosions and overwhelming natural disasters are frequently (and tragically) the headline, these works take on more weight. In a letter to Alexander Uhr, Garfield wrote, ""The idea of absence, a substantive lack of something, has always intrigued me." This idea has also intrigued me and informed the content of my own work - whether it be the absense of context through the isolation of subjects with my own work, or the absence of any explanation of the events presented - as with Garfield's work.