Pure Trash
In this body of work, I explore a subject that has been used and forgotten by society: trash. Trash is an important subject matter to me because of the amount of information that it holds. It shows an extremely private and intimate side to a person, one that you would never see, unless if you were to have the nerve or need to look inside another person’s trash can. It is also very telling of a society as a whole: an American’s trash in a city neighborhood vs. an American’s trash in a suburban neighborhood will be vastly different. I have created a body of work that makes trash look beautiful, mysterious, and valuable. Aesthetically, the repetition of forms, the depths of the wrinkles and layers and the mix of colors that a pile of trash can create are also what makes for a compelling subject. Trash contains such an intimate connection to the person who created it. A Gatorade bottle on the street was once on a stranger’s lips, and now it meets the tip of a person’s shoe when they kick it out of the way. There is an aura or spirit about something that has been used by another human and cast away. Going into the studio and photographing another person’s trash while they are there is also a fascinating experience. As I poured the items of trash onto a tarp, the owner of the trash became excited and reminiscent when they saw a pair of fake eyelashes that they wore on New Year’s Eve. Witnessing that reaction proved that when a person throws something away, they do not expect to ever see it again. This experience of photographing trash and putting a direct focus on it can be ceremonial. The mountain of objects that each human has made but has no more use for will continue to subsist long beyond our lifetimes.
