‘Simulacra: American Studies’ is an ongoing series investigating the nature of reality and cultural memory through the lens of model train scenery. The images question reality at the level of representation with the trompe l’oeil of staged photography. At first glance, the images can be read as documentation of ‘real’ scenes. However, they are depictions of hyperrealities, referencing film, architecture, and American social history.

As artificial as the physical scenes are the narrative constructs depicted in them- fiction on top of fiction in the guise of ‘reality’. The images depict places and experiences embedded in the American psyche, everyday moments from various times and places. They are at once specific and generic- a suburban neighborhood with a waiting school bus; a train yard; a nineteenth-century Western town. The images from ‘Simulacra: American Studies’ could be photos from a family album or stills from a film.

In common the scenes have a certain sunny nostalgia for an idealized American past, a past whose existence and authenticity is open to question. Encaustic creates a hazy veil over the scenes, mimicking the human tendency to romanticize the past and mythologize experience.

Medium: Encaustic photographs on panels    Dimensions: Variable    Date: 2014 – Present