Peter Happel-Christian

Peter Happel Christian’s website

http://www.peterhappelchristian.com/

Peter Happel Christian, Discovery #4, 2010, digital c-print, 18" x 20" each.
I bought an artificial rock online after finding an ad for one in a gardening magazine. The ad described using "mock rocks" to disguise eyesores (utility boxes, septic system components) in one's yard. I loved the idea of an "eyesore" in the landscape and found the mock rocks' uncanny likeness to be both haunting and funny. In the cinematic sequence of photographs, the artificial rock is lifted to reveal nothing.

Peter Happel Christian, A Time Remembered, 2010, digital c-print, 18" x 15" each.
In 2009, I collected pieces of charcoal from a beach fire while walking along the Oregon Coast. I carefully balanced the charcoal on a yard of fabric patterned with an ideal natural scene. I bought the fabric in the baby section of a fabric store - its manufacturer titled it "A Time Remembered." As a material, charcoal is the product of time passing. Combined together the charcoal and backdrop evoke a sense of nostalgia, where something has been lost and is in need of commemoration.

Peter Happel Christian, A Time Remembered, 2010, digital c-print, 18" x 15" each. 

Peter Happel Christian, Witness Tree, 2010, archival pigment print, 15" x 13" each.
This work is a photograph of nearly 60 photographs of a tree my parents planted when I was born to commemorate my birth in 1977. The bundle of snapshot-size pictures characterize photography's inability to fully capture my experience of visiting the tree.

Peter Happel Christian, Unearth, 2010, digital c-print, 20" x 26" each.
I dug a hole in my backyard to see what was underground. On one hand, it is that simple--I've done this action in my yard and taken a picture. But on the other hand, because it is an image of the result of the event, it is more than just what is pictured. The action in my yard becomes symbolic of exploration in general, of human curiosity and of adventure on a scale that is easily grasped. Photography's Achilles heal, if it has one, is its perpetual slide between objectivity and subjectivity.