As Alexander Rodchenko glorified the lowly Russian worker, I elevate urban decay. I search for the unnoticed and seek to beautify it. Where most travel over a bridge, I walk on the pilings underneath and create spaces with what I see. Using multiple exposures on film, I fashion an unknowable place from ordinary, otherwise unobserved, scenes.
Urban landscapes change: buildings are torn down and erected; highways are constructed and disappear. I record the quotidian, but with no desire to represent reality. To me, industrial corrosion is not unsightly, rather a starting point for a new environment. The sense of place I create evokes perplexing beauty; the milieu is intriguing, but impossible and incomprehensible. I want the viewer to explore the place I have created with no anxiety, no pressure to understand the image, rather to view it as a moment for contemplation.
All images copyright Sarah Gaw © 2010 | Website design by Sean Gaw