 , Stephen Dorsett Salvaged Landscapes October 15th–November 14th, 2021 reception with the artist Sunday Oct. 17, 2–5 p.m. Stephen Dorsett finds trash in parking lots, roadsides, public parks, and his own household waste stream: fast food containers, aluminum foil, styrofoam packaging. Dorsett smashes and burns the trash into sculptural media, and builds miniature pristine landscapes. He photographs them in the uncanny light of desk lamps shone through colored binder dividers. Finally, he places the landscape objects inside larger waste containers, collaged with advertising. While sculpting the dioramas, I see them as idyllic landscapes untouched by modern civilization. At these moments, I escape into the wilderness of my imagination feeling relaxed and hopeful about the future of the planet.  When I finish photographing the dioramas, I plant them inside consumer product containers covered in coupons and advertisements. In this phase of the process, my focus shifts from contemplating the beauty of the landscape to the horror of its destruction. My dioramas become for me like tourism photographs with hotels, powerlines, vacationers, and billboards cropped out of the frame. From this perspective, each landscape is just another consumable product. Since I was a child, art was an escape. I drew landscapes with giant suns in the corner of the page because the process made me happy. Creating landscape dioramas still serves the same purpose for me.  On the other hand, art is the voice of my conscience. I can’t look at a landscape for too long without thinking about ways I have negatively impacted it. My art makes me want to do better. Stephen Dorsett has a B.S. in studio art from Murray State University, a M.A.T. in art education from Eastern Kentucky University, and a M.A. in school counseling from the University of the Cumberlands. He lives in Lexington. This exhibition is part of the 2021 Louisville Photo Biennial.  |
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