neon lights | eARTh

BLEU, 2007

BARRY UNDERWOOD is an American artist who builds real full-scale installations in the environment to create surreal landscapes using neon lights. He then photographs them with a theatrical or cinematographic approach, reading the landscapes and altering the view with photographic effects.
These pictures explore the potential of the ordinary using illusion, imagination, and narrative. They transform everyday natural sceneries into unique images that alter the perception of space and also defamiliarize common objects.
Inspired by cinema, land art, and contemporary painting, the resulting photographs are both surreal and familiar. They suggest a larger narrative, and yet that narrative remains elusive and mystifying.
Space collapses, while the installed lights appear as intrusions and interventions, making the forms in the landscape abstract.

BRUSH BROOK, 2012