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Artist Statement

I am driven to photograph the places where I live, fueled by a curiosity about the architecture we surround ourselves with, and how it reflects larger cultural ideas. The images depict places that waver between fantasy and reality, calling into question ideas of beauty, class and cultural romanticism in our urban and rural landscapes.

Upon moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2007 I began looking at the complexity of its urban environment. The Bay Area presents a unique blend of residential living that sits between urban and suburban in a way that never quite reconciles one with the other. In investigating this landscape I photographed thousands of homes throughout the area and then digitally assembled these images together to create new and illogical structures and streets. At first these images look plausible, however, closer inspection reveals their fabrication. The reconstructed homes and neighborhoods appear skewed, revealing their underlying and sometimes unconscious intentions. These constructs highlight the ways in which our built environments pull from a variety of different architectural and landscape styles and reflect cultural ideas of beauty and perfection. In working with the Bay Area as a site for investigation, I explore what our built environments tell us about our own individual desires as well as our collective culture and ideals.

Check out BLDGBLOG's feature on Leigh Merrill's Street series here

Biography

Leigh Merrill’s work blends fantasy with reality to call into question ideas of beauty, class and romanticism.

Merrill was born in 1978 and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She currently lives and works in Dallas, Texas. She received her BFA from the University of New Mexico in 2001 and she received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California in 2009. Merrill's work has been a part of exhibitions throughout the United States in venues such as the Phoenix Art Museum, the diRosa Art Preserve, The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art and the Center on Contemporary Art Seattle. Her work is a part of the City of Phoenix permanent collection.

For more information about the photographer visit leighmerril.com