Black_White_Photography_-_Winter_2014

22

B+W

COMMENT

susanburnstine.com

After experiencing the harsh winter of Minnesota, Paula McCartney

decided to turn her back on reality and create her own constructed

landscapes of the imagination. She talks to Susan Burnstine.

AMERICAN

CONNECTION

M

inneapolis-based

photographer Paula

McCartney invites

viewers to explore the

perimeters of reality by creating

‘constructed landscapes’ which

she describes as topographies

that are partially real and

partially fabricated. When

creating images, she interacts

directly with the natural

environment, yet she never limits

herself by the constructs of

reality, thus initiating a multi-

layered conversation concerning

authentic or imagined elements.

The inception for McCartney’s

approach transpired while

living in New York City in

the 1990s. During that time

she created a series of black &

white photographs of the bird

aviaries at the Bronx Zoo. The

images depicted live birds in

habitats containing living foliage,

sculpted rocks and painted

backgrounds, all of which

fascinated her. She recalls,

‘I loved how if I ignored what was

in my peripheral vision, I was

transported from the Bronx to

a lush South American jungle.’

After completing graduate

school at the San Francisco Art

Institute, McCartney began a

project entitled Bird Watching,

which was informed by her Bronx

Zoo series, but shot in colour

using craft store song birds placed

in natural landscapes. During

that time, she moved to Michigan

then to Minneapolis, where she

ultimately completed the project.

After experiencing the

harsh winter atmosphere in

Minnesota, McCartney became

inspired to illustrate the

extreme, somewhat exotic,

seasonal landscape.

Traditionally, she disliked being

outside in cold weather and she

had no interest in accurately

documenting the winter

landscape, so she decided

to ‘explore the winter of

her imagination’.

That June, she began her series,

A Field Guide to Snow and

Ice, by collecting, pressing and

making photograms of Queen

Anne’s Lace; a wild flower

that resembles a snowflake.

‘I decided,’ she says, ‘that the

constructed aspect of this series

would be how the images were

juxtaposed with each other to

reference multiple ideas on both

micro and macro levels.’

McCartney created

photographs of snowdrifts,

a frozen waterfall, ice mounds,

ice scooped out of a Minneapolis

lake, icicles that hung from

her roof and large sheets of ice

floating on Lake Superior. She

also photographed stalagmites in

Carlsbad Caverns, the Gypsum

Sand Dunes at White Sands

Natural Monument and calcite

deposits on a lava bed in Hawaii.

‘I’d like the work to encourage a wider

and more open way of looking.’

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