Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
Stephen Chen
Lives and works in Toronto , Ontario ( Canada )
An artist ' s statement
B
OUNDED NATURE is a photographic series that investigates the dialectic and tension between the natural and the man-made ; how nature is contained , pruned , and rendered “ invisible ”. Nature becomes dis- “ figured ” through de-centering , which is both a commentary and metaphor for urban dwellers ’ ritualized and cultivated unconscious of their impacts on the larger environment in their everyday actions .
Urban photography has created a pervasive trope of the city to the extent we learn not to “ see ” nature in depictions of urban settings ; our gaze cultivated instead towards the geometry and lines of the man-made . On the other hand , landscape photography ( whether the unspoiled vistas of Ansel Adams , or the degraded beauty of Edward Burtynsky ) have favoured exotic and far-flung locales that further distance the urban dweller in appreciating their intricate relation to the larger environment .
In hybridizing tropes of landscape and urban photography to focus on the dis- “ figured ” nature , BOUNDED NATURE attempts to center the relationship of the natural in the urban landscape by the intimacy of the subject matter , and in shifting the discourse of weeds / decay to a symbol of optimism and struggle .
The use of false-color infrared imagery renders the typically “ invisible ”/” ignored ” nature in those settings to the foreground ; and represents a new way of seeing the everyday and our relationship to the environment .
Stephen Chen