Mills College
MFA Exhibition 2009

Andrew Witrak
  Joseph Berryhill
Annie Vought   Kate Pszotka
Brian Caraway   Leigh Merrill
Gina Tuzzi   Modesto Covarrubias
Esther Traugot   Steuart Pittman

Curated by Terri Cohn

Mills College Art Museum
May 3 - 31, 2009

Opening reception:
Saturday, May 2, 2009, 7 to 9pm.

Directions: 510.430.3250
Museum Information: 510.430.2164
Museum Hours: Tues-Sun 11-4pm, Wed 11-7:30pm

Catalogue available, featuring essays by Terri Cohn and Glen Helfand

millslectureseries.blogspot.com

Leigh Merrill / Artist Statement

I am driven to photograph the places where I live, fueled by a curiosity about the architecture we surround ourselves with, and how it reflects larger cultural ideas. The images depict places that waver between fantasy and reality, calling into question ideas of beauty, class and cultural romanticism in our urban and rural landscapes.

Upon moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007 I began looking at the complexity of its urban environment. The Bay Area presents a unique blend of residential living that sits between urban and suburban in a way that never quite reconciles one with the other. In investigating this landscape I photographed thousands of homes throughout the area and then digitally assembled these images together to create new and illogical structures and streets. At first these images look plausible, however, closer inspection reveals their fabrication. The reconstructed homes and neighborhoods appear skewed, revealing their underlying and sometimes unconscious intentions. These constructs highlight the ways in which our built environments pull from a variety of different architectural and landscape styles and reflect cultural ideas of beauty and perfection. In working with the Bay Area as a site for investigation, I explore what our built environments tell us about our own individual desires as well as our collective culture and ideals.

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