Susan Mikula: American Bond

October 17, 2011, Featured Articles, Previews

Wed, Oct 12, 2011

A three-part series of industrial landscapes – vital but liminal, built-up American vistas. Opens October 19 with a reception on October 22 at George Lawson Gallery.

Susan Mikula’s creative roots rest deep in the aesthetic legacies of painting and photography, so it’s no surprise that her art is sometimes taken for painting — but it is photography. Shooting exclusively with Polaroid cameras for over a decade and – of necessity – expired Polaroid film, she works only with available light, manually controlling exposures to exploit the quirks of the cameras and the volatility and decay of salvaged film to create painterly, almost impressionistic imagery. Mikula has developed an expert understanding and instinct for how to turn the inelegant degradation of the film stock into a powerful ally in her creative process. The resulting images are neither cropped nor retouched as they travel from camera to final print.

American Bond is Susan Mikula's three-part series of industrial landscapes – vital but liminal, built-up American vistas. The first part presents images of the oil refineries along the Texas gulf coast and the vast port of Los Angeles for American Device; the second, American Vale, is focused on the industrial facilities of the General Electric Corporation in Pittsfield, Massachusetts; and the third part, American Breakbulk, explores the cargo-handling environs of Camden, New Jersey. Like much of Mikula's work, the highly abstracted imagery in American Bond is about mood and tone and feeling. This series, though, is also about the edges of American physical space -- life on the edge of the country, the edge of our everyday awareness, on the edge of change. Not documentary in any conventional sense (though things do get documented) and not photo-journalistic, Mikula's landscapes are nevertheless clear: un-maudlin, un-romanticized living industry.