“Sublime Cultivation” is a meditation on the inextricable relationship between nature and artifice, and the human role within this dialectic.

Collected through a series of road trips over the course of five years, the impetus for the project stems from a desire to evaluate our evolving paradigm of Nature. The project consists of intermingled groups of photographic genres: archetypal landscapes, street photography and abstractions, but my focus is on the interrelationships between juxtaposed images that necessitate formal and poetic associations. Separately the images isolate myths. Together they aim to demystify Nature through a process of self-aware photographic representation.

This project is rooted in the American Landscape tradition of painting and photography, and specifically uses the 18th century concept of the Sublime as a principle for re-evaluating our relationship to Nature. My anxiety over human and ecological fragility shapes my perception of the landscape and gives form to these emotionally charged images. I am looking for moments when the everyday turns bizarre and surreal; where atmosphere and emotional content bonds images together.

All images ©Christopher Rodriguez