Roe Ethridge

Pigeons, UPS drivers, Ford models, the moon, dead sharks, pine trees, over-saturated Harry & David catalog pages, interstate highway junctions, idyllic rural landscapes, and basement clutter. Roe Ethridge shifts between photographic subjects, swiftly discarding them for inverse yet connected subjects. Subjects are set aside, only to be revisited and intermixed with the others.

This sporadic movement is what drives Ethridge's work. The spaces between the subjects are where the viewer is invited to assume what has been cut out: an unending stream of connective photos that if included, would have yielded a nearly linear body of work. Instead, he edits, setting up complex relationships between his genres of imagery. For County Line Plus Town and Country Ethridge has selected works from two sets of images, creating an installation of photos that fills two of the gallery's floors.

County Line is comprised of six loosely accumulated sets, which include photos of the Canadian Rockies and strip mall signs from suburban Atlanta and suburban Long Island. The County Line catalog, which accompanied Ethridge's recent solo project at ICA Boston, functions much like a cross between an artist book and a stock photography catalog. Along with the near-ideal landscapes and portraits, Ethridge's publication includes photos of affronting facades of suburban strip mall signs and a shadowy still life of prepared meats on a cutting board.

Town and Country is a working title for pictures the artist shot in upstate New York in the summer of 2005 to illustrate an essay for "Another Man" magazine, the subject of which was Richard Prince's move upstate from New York City. Four images from this shoot have been included in the exhibition.

Pressetext

Roe Ethridge: County Line Plus Town and Country