Peter Margonelli was a photographer focused on abstracting the
relationship between industry and the natural world. Through various means
of reducing his subject’s forms, whether it be the blurring of rain on a
windshield or the flattening view of a landscape from above, his images drew attention
to patterns and alignments in the contemporary industrial landscape. His images
reflect an emotional landscape and inner world, more aligned with painters like Diebenkon than with traditional photography.
Peter’s upbringing in a small industrial town in Connecticut acts as the inspiration and initial spark that led to his fascination with the ways in which industry has transformed the landscape. There is an ambivalence and sadness to the way he pictured the industrial world – his focus was not on the way the landscape has been ravaged or scarred, rather, there is a sense of empathy and nostalgia directed at the crumbling ruins: a sense of wonder at the histories and lives that once occupied these spaces. His images see into spaces without occupying them: they are taken from fleeting moments seen in-transit or from an unfamiliar vantage – giving the landscape a feeling of being just out-of-reach – like a landscape from a dream or a distant memory.
Peter’s upbringing in a small industrial town in Connecticut acts as the inspiration and initial spark that led to his fascination with the ways in which industry has transformed the landscape. There is an ambivalence and sadness to the way he pictured the industrial world – his focus was not on the way the landscape has been ravaged or scarred, rather, there is a sense of empathy and nostalgia directed at the crumbling ruins: a sense of wonder at the histories and lives that once occupied these spaces. His images see into spaces without occupying them: they are taken from fleeting moments seen in-transit or from an unfamiliar vantage – giving the landscape a feeling of being just out-of-reach – like a landscape from a dream or a distant memory.