Lauren Davies

Lives and works in Cleveland, OH, USA

Artist statement

My current mixed media work meshes textiles, sculpture and photography into a visual investigation of the historic realities of life in the Rust Belt. I research the histories of various abandoned locations throughout Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. Traveling to these locations, I then photograph the faltering remains of what had once been thriving economies and communities. Some of the images also range to former scenes of incarceration that had once been a model for so-called rehabilitation programs, but had eventually been forcibly closed by a class action lawsuit. My photographs of these previously populated locations are then re-produced via digital processes derived from the affordable immediacy of Walmart. My working process involves uploading digital files to Walmart’s website where the photographs are processed into woven versions of my images. Essentially, I am working with a new inexpensive web-based technology to present images of a dying economy, outmoded technologies and dehumanizing confinement. I subsequently deconstruct the photographic Walmart weavings by pulling threads from the image and often incorporate other processes such as over-dying, bleaching and manual collage using a sewing machine. The connection between the object-like image of an abandoned Rust Belt site, the Walmart weaving process and the deconstructive hand-worked processes creates a visual impression that the image is dematerializing and unraveling into a sagging pile of...

Artwork