Roe Ethridge freely combines his commercial advertising work with conceptual art photography. He places images from fashion magazines alongside nostalgic-looking streetscapes from American suburbs and close-ups of everyday objects. In his series and books, familiar and intimate details from apparently incompatible settings are juxtaposed in ever-changing compositions. In this way, Ethridge explores how identical images in different constellations awaken new visual experiences and suggest divergent storylines. Ethridge works with the classic photographic genres – portrait, landscape and still life – but processes his images in such a well-considered way that the categories enter into complex interrelationships.
Having spent his childhood and student years in Atlanta and Florida, he moved to New York in 1977, where he started work as a commercial photographer. He took photos for the fashion world, magazines, and companies including Kenzo and Mercedes-Benz. Ethridge’s effortless switching between commercial and artistic photography characterises his entire oeuvre. After a period of intensive travelling, the photographer explored the meaning of personal space and its boundaries via images of his own home and studio, photos of staged bedrooms from magazines, and suburban decors and billboards.
His projects yield installations and books. The fact that his images only find their relative finality as part of a connected whole is essential to Ethridge’s practice. Images that initially seem familiar are injected with a tinge of mystery through artistic combinations. A still life with rotting fruit beside a catwalk shot, or a close-up of a pumpkin sticker beside a photo of a red bag in a corner, are imbued with significance thanks to their careful arrangement. In this way, Ethridge dislocates the original meaning of the photos and presents them with a potentially new one.
Ethridge’s work is influenced by figures such as Thomas Ruff, Michael Schmidt and Christopher Williams, all photographers who combine biographical storylines with meta-narrative concepts in serial formats. The individual images are similarly conceptual, but their grouping and coupling opens the door to conceptual links. Images are also fickle and their original intention fades over time, thus allowing new meanings to arise.
