Ross Sawyers Dismantled Rooms
September 1 to October 1, 2024
Artist's Reception, First Thursday, September 1, 6 to 8PM

Link to images from the exhibition

"As the increasing density of neighborhoods and suburbs driven by the housing boom turned into the mass of foreclosures caused by the collapse of the housing market, my interests too, shifted from creating over-exaggerated physical spaces to creating increasingly psychological spaces that reference patterns of destruction and vandalism inflicted on these spaces by former inhabitants.

These photographs are an attempt to question the distinction between a building and a home and at the same time draw attention the purpose of the deliberate destructive mark. Through the process of foreclosure, the homes I am referencing undergo an immediate transformation from home to empty building, striping these spaces of the weight and significance associated with the idea of home. Often, as a last act, inhabitants of these spaces destroy or vandalize them as if to mark territory or as an attempt to remind others of their presence after they are gone.

The way I construct these spaces is a direct reference to the uniformity of design and level of craft often associated with new residential developments. The common building methods, combined with the deliberate destructive marks I inflict upon them are designed to invoke a sense of vacancy and loss in a space that appears ready to collapse at any moment while at the same time making direct reference to those who may have previously inhabited them.

The spaces depicted in these photographs are close the actual but are not completely accurate or exact copies of the evolving reality I observe in my surroundings, they rely on the tenuous relationship between reality and construct created by the use of the constructed model as well as the illusion of permanence that the resulting photograph provides. These images present a non-linear progression of mark making and destruction of the interior spaces I have created. Multiple photographs depicting a variety of destructive actions represent each space. The marks are at the same time destructive and gestural, referencing both traditions of drawing and marking of territory.

The class of structures I reference in my photographs—apartments and houses—are structures that we all experience in various and intimate ways. This level of familiarity is important to me, allowing the environments I create to resonate with the viewer, allowing them to create parallels between my visual interpretations and that which they have directly experienced in their own reality."

Ross’s work has been in in various exhibits including the 2006 CoCA Annual and the 9th Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum in 2009. His work is in the Monsen Family Collection (Seattle, WA), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL), and the Nelson-Atkins Museum (Kansas City, MO). He holds an MFA from the University of Washington. This is his third solo show at Platform.

Also on view in the Project Space
I'm not a love boat, an installation by Marc Dombrosky in conjunction with the inclusion of his work in the group exhibition Travelers: Objects of Dream and Revelation at the Bellevue Art Museum through December 31.