I am transporting the viewer to a space that simultaneously exists and does not exist. My photographs in conversation with sculptural aspects, archival family photographs and collage often point to a recognizable theme or subject without providing the specifics. A photograph of folded-over marsh grass creates a dream-like space that I know and feel as though I could touch, yet the viewer has never been there. Use of color Polaroids decorated with distortions creates an aesthetic of the imperfection of replication as beauty. Observing the work in its entirety engages feelings of nostalgia and intimacy and the sensation of recalling a memory. I use landscapes of the eastern coast as a placeholder for memories to exist (the flow of water, a collection of stones, a field of grass) and disrupt the repetition with placeholders of my memories there.
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Patrick Owings
In this body of work, This is God’s Country. Why Set it On Fire & Make it Look Like Hell?, I revisit locations that held significance to my family and I growing up in an attempt find a sense of identity through catharsis. Being both queer and an identical twin, I’ve struggled in my adulthood to establish a sense of self and belonging in these Maryland landscapes and marsh-lands that raised me. Through the exploration of the landmarks that exemplify unrestrained adolescence and ephemeral beauty, I am claiming authorship over my memories and bridging the gap between who I was and who I am becoming.
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