NELSON HANCOCK GALLERY

Nelson Hancock Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “-Scapes: Artifice and Replication in Cultured Landscapes,” including photographs by Peter Quinn, Takato Watanabe, Jens Egeberg, Nelson Hancock, and Laura Miller.

Drawing on diverse arenas such as aquariums, Japanese gardens, archeological ruins and sub-arctic hiking trails, the artists featured in “-Scapes” move beyond the often politicized field of environmental photography to seize upon the inherently odd couplings of nature and culture. The works featured in “-Scapes” all explore quasi-natural environments, seeking out the juxtapositions (whimsical, jarring, uncanny) that result from human interactions with nature. The recurring motifs of tourism and recreation are tempered here with a sense of carefully cultivated reverence. The sites examined here are marked not with the scars of industry, but with the adoring hand of the connoisseur. They are sites of comingling, where the disorder of natural spaces are perfected and “curated.”

In the affectionate reproductions of nature found in Watanabe’s views of Japanese gardens and Peter Quinn’s photographs of aquariums, there is a disquieting sense of remove, suggesting a loving, yet impossible embrace. In these venues, nature is arranged and displayed according to the logic of science and design.
Jens Egeberg’s photography examines the vast network of trails maintained by Norway’s Mountain Touring Association (Den Norske Turistforening). He describes nature walks as “a craze” in Norway. “It’s like something sacred for Norwegian people to be in nature.” His photographs recreate the visual perspective of the hiker, simultaneously emphasizing the beauty of the wilderness and the traces and trails left by the walkers.
Nelson Hancock’s photographs of archeological ruins recall both the scientific survey shots used by archeologists and the romantic idealizations of ruins popular in the late 19th century. These archeological sites have been abandoned, but are still populated by visitors and caretakers. Their crumbling structures, some protected by fences and ropes, are frozen in decline.