Paradise Now explores how urban fantasies and construction function as expressions of nationalistic ambition, blurring the line between the natural and artificial within the hypermodern city.
Paradise Now is driven by my ongoing curiosity into the human condition, and a desire to visually interpret socio-cultural phenomena within both natural and man-made landscapes. I am drawn, photographically, to the world’s rapidly-expanding and hyper-globalized cities, particularly those that have invested heavily in large-scale urban planning and modernist/futurist architecture. I find that the topographically surreal environments that are products of that planning and architecture set the stage for interesting photo opportunities, from close up and afar.
— Ryan Koopmans, New York City, USA