MIKE PERRY PHOTOGRAPHY - ASTRAL AMERICA PROJECT

The Dying Forest and Silver Birch images were taken just north of The Grand Canyon and are part of The Astral America Project, 2002, involving artists Tom Hunter and Norbert Shoerner.

Perry’s American forests suggest tangled, spidery spaces which resemble the surfaces of abstract paintings. Their arrangements appear almost gestural, as if a human hand had controlled their higgledy–piggledy layout. In some ways Perry’s forests evoke similar responses to Thomas Struth’s Paradise series: they appear as formal constructs distilling complex organic shapes into a space of contemplation and mediation.

But Perry’s forests also open up an evocative mental space in which America may be thought of as truly foreign. They provide glimpses of America’s darker side, it’s accompanying shadows and metaphorical rot. Produced on natural film stock and a 10/8 field camera, these photographs possess a soft, very un-Hollywood light. They impose an eerie pictorial depth and a European verticality onto the American landscape – a space in which one might untangle one’s thoughts about America and what America means.

C type print, 152 by 126 cm