Stacks explores an intersection of photography and sculpture. I build precarious and hovering towers of newspapers and magazines which I then photograph. These images ask viewers to consider how quickly “news” becomes old, and how consuming is ultimately unwieldy. The work expresses some of the shifts of identity within our constantly changing and morphing culture. The sculptures topple and sway, erase and crumble to articulate this vision of a totem that could stand unassisted. Each pile is frozen in a tenuous moment right before collapse. The layers of newspapers within these images, stories within stories we consume and discard, create a timeline of constructed identity, a spectrum of experience we express through our publications and press. Pockets of color create glimpses of advertising and images that draw the viewer in to the image to examine details of recombined text. Pinks and blues and greens make visual breaks in the slabs of gray paper. The larger forms of these structures create corporeal figures out of the residue and remains of our trash. They hang isolated in black, ghosts composed from the ephemeral, disposable media we purchase and throw away. Seen in a group, the stacks become figurative, signifying individuals with lives that are hard-won, bent and struggling to stand up.
All works are archival inkjet prints. 60×40″ 2009-2010.