David S. Allee

Artist Statement

How cities evolve and develop in ways that are not coherent or logical is of particular interest to me (as a former urban planner) and was the inspiration for two recent and related series of my photographs. Cross Lands explores urban and suburban environments where multiple uses — buildings, condominiums, highways, billboards, strip malls etc. — overlap and sit side-by-side, resulting in strange spatial compositions and bizarre hybrids of uses and structures. The series White Nights explores locations intensely illuminated at night, such as stadiums and golf driving ranges, focusing on the unintended overflow of this light. In both series I’m drawn to photograph places that seem unguided by traditional issues of planning or architecture and seem to have formed by accident. The unnatural and unreal state in these cityscapes and landscapes is accentuating by the synthetic qualities of available artificial light at dusk and night. My work, as a result, reflects a relationship to the built world that shifts between control and randomness, strangeness and beauty, and comfort and fear.

David S. Allee at Young Gallery