Dyads from the Elastic Forest

As we continue to log old-growth trees in the Pacific Northwest, the memory of their presence is dissolving into our culture, tamed and diminished, in the form of murals, toys, playground equipment, playhouses, and the like. These sterile tokens contrast with the 1000-year-old stumps decaying in our forest, eroding into haunted ruins. The Elastic Forest series explores how this distortion parallels our continuing alienation as we struggle to find renewal and our place in the natural world.

In Dyads from the Elastic Forest, I present coupled photos, asking the viewer to connect dissimilar images that call out for resolution. What does this puzzling situation stimulate in the psyche: what associations, stories, or memories arise to bridge that gap? Is each diptych simply a framework for viewers to flesh out as the moment requires, or does their narrative undergo a kind of alchemy, mixing with the residue of my own tenuous story? Perhaps the result is a layered fable that floats in a third space.

The title alludes to William Eggleston’s Democratic Forest. In his photographs, banal objects are often strangely magnetic to our projections while remaining anchored in the everyday and staying stubbornly themselves. In Dyads from the Elastic Forest series I also employ photography’s simple power of translation - its ability to uncover the potent metaphors hidden in the commonplace - in order to explore what I’m attracted to and learn what I’m thinking.

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