Seeing Peter Croteau’s work in Portland was a treat. As someone who loves geology, landscapes and rocks, this was a gift to me in a sea (or see) of imagery. That these are manufactured landscapes in a sense, is even better. We see our world as we wish it to be, remember the landscape as we wish it was. It is in this clever capture that molehills become mountains, dirt piles become monoliths. It is Peter’s reference to scale that skews our perceptions of what is and what was, and for me, what I want these mountains to be.

Peter has just been announced as part of KlompChing Gallery’s Fresh exhibition, opening opening July 17th and running through August 10th. Don’t miss what looks to be a great exhibition.

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About Mountains –

Spaces of dross are the in-between waste spaces in the landscape. Left as a result of sprawl, these spaces are in a constant state of flux between use and disuse. I explore these mundane spaces using the camera as an apparatus that can reframe and order the world. Through my use of the large format camera I create images of dross that also function as markers of the sublime.

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Mountains  X

In focusing on spaces of dross, but using my camera more like a canvas, I set up a dualistic relationship between earth and sky in order reference painterly representations of the sublime. This relationship speaks to a high/low binary that exists in the American landscape between spaces of preservation and spaces of waste, humans’ free will to shape land and its use, as well as the ideologies that define the way we understand natural forms.

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About Peter Croteau –

Peter was born in Boston, MA in 1988. Moving around many times as a youth to various tract house suburbs gave him a further understanding of the differences and similarities between places across the US. He became most interested in the concepts of the in-between and the sublime in the landscape and how the two may intersect. He considers himself to be an explorer of mundane spaces looking to transform the everyday into something otherworldly through the use of a view camera. He received his MFA in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design in 2012 and his BS in Photography from Drexel University in 2010. He has exhibited at solo and group shows across the North East and was included in the 2011 PDN Annual and the 2012 Photo Review. He lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.

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To see more of Peter’s work, please log onto his website.