Paul Raphaelson Photographs | Artist's Statement

LOST SPACES, FOUND GARDENS

2005-ongoing

These photographs were inspired by my immediate surroundings in Brooklyn and Manhattan; particularly by overgrown spaces that lurk almost everywhere, but that have dropped off the map of collective consciousness. I’m drawn to the surprises that I find here, to the almost subversive thriving of natural life and unusual form.

Paradise is the Persian word for a walled enclosure. As often as not, in the city the walls are cyclone fences crowned with razorwire. Whatever they lack in charm they make up by providing a framed view from the outside. I find solace in the spontaneous gardens behind the fences. And I’m inspired by all the wild things invading them, by the relief they bring from the city’s antiseptic geometry and sheen.

WILDERNESS

1994-2003

These photographs document ten years of exploration. They’re the product of my search for a sense of place—physical, cultural, and emotional—amid desolate surroundings.

In the early Nineteen-nineties I lived in Providence, Rhode Island, in a landscape at turns both overgrown and barren. New England row houses mingled with empty lots, crumbling husks of factories, and a dizzying web of trees, weeds, cyclone fences, and high tension wires. Layers of growth and decay confounded any attempts at easy interpretation. The landscape might have been formed by a simple mix of accident and neglect, but it felt to me like the work of a larger process. I saw a kind of unconscious synergy in the acts of people, nature, and erosion that had shaped these spaces over many years. When I moved and continued the project in an industrial section of Brooklyn, the mix of these elements changed, but the underlying feeling stayed the same. There was more to the garbage than garbage, more to the desolation than desolation.

I titled the work Wilderness in response to these impressions. The word has meant different things to different cultures over the years, but it has usually carried senses of mystery, of darkness, and of journeying somewhere beyond the borders of the comfortable and the known. The Wilderness has been a place that we feared but at the same time longed for, often with a sense that only there, far from the safety and attachments of our everyday lives, might we finally find ourselves.

SOUTHWEST

1988-ongoing

This work started when I was a student, grew over the years I lived in southern Colorado, and will continue to evolve, I hope, whenever I have a chance to visit.

Can anything worthwhile be added to the ever-growing pile of pictures of the southwest? The challenge used to be finding form in the vast chaos; now it’s avoiding the picturesque clichés we’ve been looking at all our lives. I try—with mixed success I suspect—to capture reactions that are immediate and personal, and also true in a sense that’s larger than myself. While in the Southwest, my feelings are usually some mix of awe and disappointment, serenity and anger. Conflict seems inherent to the physical landscape as well as the emotional one; the region has long been a battleground for opposing ideologies and myths. The scars from these battles are evident almost everywhere.

I’d like to make some sense, without rhetoric, of the beautiful land between these scars and of some of the scars themselves.

CHICAGO

1988-1990

These pictures represent my earliest work. They were made when I was a student, revisiting and rediscovering the city where I grew up. The winter pictures were all made during a ten day period in 1989, with help from a grant from the Colorado College.


		LOST SPACES, FOUND GARDENS 2005-ongoing These photographs were inspired by my immediate surroundings in Brooklyn and Manhattan; particularly by overgrown spaces that lurk almost everywhere, but that have dropped off the map of collective consciousness. I’m drawn to the surprises that I find here, to the almost subversive thriving of natural life and unusual form. Paradise is the Persian word for a walled enclosure. As often as not, in the city the walls are cyclone fences crowned with razorwire. Whatever they lack in charm they make up by providing a framed view from the outside. I find solace in the spontaneous gardens behind the fences. And I’m inspired by all the wild things invading them, by the relief they bring from the city’s antiseptic geometry and sheen. WILDERNESS 1994-2003 These photographs document ten years of exploration. They’re the product of my search for a sense of place—physical, cultural, and emotional—amid desolate surroundings. In the early Nineteen-nineties I lived in Providence, Rhode Island, in a landscape at turns both overgrown and barren. New England row houses mingled with empty lots, crumbling husks of factories, and a dizzying web of trees, weeds, cyclone fences, and high tension wires. Layers of growth and decay confounded any attempts at easy interpretation. The landscape might have been formed by a simple mix of accident and neglect, but it felt to me like the work of a larger process. I saw a kind of unconscious synergy in the acts of people, nature, and erosion that had shaped these spaces over many years. When I moved and continued the project in an industrial section of Brooklyn, the mix of these elements changed, but the underlying feeling stayed the same. There was more to the garbage than garbage, more to the desolation than desolation. I titled the work Wilderness in response to these impressions. The word has meant different things to different cultures over the years, but it has usually carried senses of mystery, of darkness, and of journeying somewhere beyond the borders of the comfortable and the known. The Wilderness has been a place that we feared but at the same time longed for, often with a sense that only there, far from the safety and attachments of our everyday lives, might we finally find ourselves. SOUTHWEST 1988-ongoing This work started when I was a student, grew over the years I lived in southern Colorado, and will continue to evolve, I hope, whenever I have a chance to visit. Can anything worthwhile be added to the ever-growing pile of pictures of the southwest? The challenge used to be finding form in the vast chaos; now it’s avoiding the picturesque clichés we’ve been looking at all our lives. I try—with mixed success I suspect—to capture reactions that are immediate and personal, and also true in a sense that’s larger than myself. While in the Southwest, my feelings are usually some mix of awe and disappointment, serenity and anger. Conflict seems inherent to the physical landscape as well as the emotional one; the region has long been a battleground for opposing ideologies and myths. The scars from these battles are evident almost everywhere. I’d like to make some sense, without rhetoric, of the beautiful land between these scars and of some of the scars themselves. CHICAGO 1988-1990 These pictures represent my earliest work. They were made when I was a student, revisiting and rediscovering the city where I grew up. The winter pictures were all made during a ten day period in 1989, with help from a grant from the Colorado College.

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