Aubrey J. Kauffman

www.AubreyJKauffman.com

I grew up in the industrialized northeastern part of the United States, where I still live and work. This environment has had an impact on what I photograph. For more than 20 years the themes of urban architecture and man’s impact on the environment has long challenged me artistically and intellectually. I witness this in urban structures as simple as building façades in a strip mall to the deserted athletic fields of parks and playgrounds. The resulting work, titled Urban Studies, is an interaction of formal and organic elements.

Through my viewfinder I organize these banal yet complex images, first as flat two-dimensional objects and then as a multi-layered space of visual elements. The intent of portraying the desolation and lack of human interaction is intentional, marking a direct consequence of this isolation.

— Aubrey J. Kauffman, West Trenton, New Jersey, USA

Aubrey R. Hays

www.AubreyHays.net

I was raised in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and a Navajo reservation in rural Arizona — a varied array of settings that have contributed to my aptitude for solo treks and a remote creative process. Through photographic documentation I examine the ways in which the figure relates to the natural world around it. In negotiating my own surroundings, a process of performance and endurance is defined.

This work came from a month-long residency in Siglufjördur, Iceland. By grappling with the uncomfortable, the disquiet, the cold and unknown, I lay gesture to an overwhelming need to overcome isolation within these rural spaces as well as within myself. This riff in a seemingly picturesque space is informed by a personal coalition of nature and its aptitude for interference.

Aubrey R. Hays, Brooklyn, NY, USA