Apostles of Beauty

Posted on: April 23, 2019
Views: 1202

Description

Apostles of Beauty explores the American suburban neighborhood as a cultural signifier. Inspired by the history of gardening and landscape architecture, these images investigate superficiality and uniformity within the context of suburban America, as well as the embrace of a standardized aesthetic as a signal of participation within a community.




Paige Salmon

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MFA Student

Major: Photography

Graduation Year: 2019


Artist Statement:

Manipulation of the landscape has carried the connotations of power and wealth for centuries and contemporary suburbia doesn’t escape from this legacy. Paige Salmon’s practice centers around the way contemporary society’s impulse to create facade through the ornamentation and organization of the landscape. Using both digital and analog photography processes, she produces non-narrative photographs that reveal the superficiality in the manipulated landscape. Functioning in the gap between reality and representation, the photographic image serves not only as a report on the suburban landscape, but an assessment of it. Through the depiction of hyper-controlled environments, her work reevaluates the way humans interact with surroundings and community. By re-contextualizing or de-contextualizing constructed landscapes through the photographic process, viewers interact with the scenes in a manner that allows them to investigate the human impulse to create facade through the ornamentation and organization of the landscape.
In her recent work titled Apostles of Beauty, Salmon explores the American suburban neighborhood as a cultural signifier. Inspired by the history of gardening and landscape architecture, these images investigate superficiality and uniformity within the context of suburban America, as well as the embrace of a standardized aesthetic as a signal of participation within a community.

https://portfolio.meca.edu/
https://portfolio.meca.edu/