Artist Statement:
Born and raised in the suburban town of Swansea, Massachusetts, I have watched this small, south coast landscape change over the past 25 years. For the last three years, I have been documenting these transformations through the use of photography. From bridge construction and repair, to the loss of green space; from the rise of strip-mall sprawl, to the abandonment of these very same buildings, I have used my camera as a means of documenting the permutations of our particular space. Most recently, I’ve been intrigued’like many people in its shadow’by the new Brayton Point Cooling Towers. Like an industrial Gargantua and Pantagruel, these towers appeared and now loom over the landscape, infuriating some, amazing others, but indelibly making their mark on our consciousness.
Driving through any of the small towns surrounding Somerset’s Brayton Point, the impact of the 500 foot twin towers is readily noticeable; in many ways, they have altered each neighborhood, each ball park, each kitchen window, each shoreline and front-lawn. In a certain light, it is fascinating to see how these blinking gray towers have brought the landscape together, while disfiguring it at the same time. From Fall River to Providence, Rhode Island and beyond, the towers are visible, and their dominance upon our small town landscape is easily seen in symbolic terms: a stolid, industrial reminder of the excesses of big business, our continued separation from the natural beauty of the land, and the precarious relationship between the individual and the apparatus of society.
Artist’s Reception will take place on Sunday, August 14 from 4:00 – 6:00 pm. Admission is free. The public is cordially invited.