Project: Grid Cities- Gas Stations of the South West

Series of 21 color images

 100cm x 80cm prints, Limited edition of 4

Gas Stations of the South West is a series of large format analogue photographs made in the South West of the UK, that make a comment about how industrial cultural icons transgress borders and time. 

The work is a gentle parody of the landscape photographs made in the South West of the USA by the great documentary photographers of the past. It shows how much the gas/ petrol pump has become a global icon, and records their neglect and abandonment as modern society shifts its consumer focus from independent country hamlets to centralised urban and sub-urban living. It is also a vision of the future, as one day we will run out of oil, and the modern pumps will be left abandoned like these classics, to rust and decay as our living habits evolve. 

The work took two and a half years to shoot, mostly due to the unpredictable nature of the British weather. I wanted to capture the UK gas stations in the light that reminded me of the North American light I had seen in photographs from the South West of the USA.

Gas Stations of the South West was first exhibited in Galería Kowaski, Valencia in 2006.