JUSTEN AHREN

Artist Statement

This photographic series asks us to widen our aperture, to rise,
literally, above the everyday landscape of politics, war
and environmental desecration and see the world in a new way.
Despite the problems we face and consume each day, there is beauty
all around us. 

Saltworks is a drastic shift in my creative work.
Before this series, I was immersed in creating and performing
multi-media around the refugee crises.  For four years I
followed refugee routes in Italy, and volunteered in Greece
rescuing people crossing the Mediterranean.  These experiences
affected me deeply but making art about it was physically
and mentally exhausting.  I felt like I was sinking underwater. 
Everything became black and white. 

Saltworks–and the larger project, The Earth Tends to Beauty
Despite, of which it’s part—has been a revelation.  The bold colors
and powerful geometries of these images broke in and rescued me. 
It was a complete detour from my previous work.  For the first time,
I was working in color and abstraction.

I found my way to this project by accident.  It was the first days of Covid
and a photography trip I’d planned to the Permian Basin in Texas
had been cancelled by lockdown.  Feeling stuck as so many of us did
then, I decided to travel to Texas virtually using Google Earth.
Had Covid not happened, I doubt I would’ve discovered the beauty
made by plowed fields, irrigation circles, feed lots, and cattle trails.

I made 300 images in two days using a satellite’s eye to view the Earth. 
Later, I’d go with a drone to make hundreds more.  Saltworks began
When I flew a drown over the Camargue in southern France and saw
the evaporation ponds against the sea.     

I’ve always been interested in finding beauty in destruction.  All my work
tends to the damaged, the broken to see what beauty can be extracted.
Perhaps something uplifting and unexpected can be salvaged from the suffering.
Even in the worst situations something transcendent, sublime, divine appears.

These images require the viewer to pause, to look closely, to ask, what am I seeing? 
What else could this be?  A bracelet?  A transistor?  A field?      
Abstract and without scale, the images slowly reveal themselves to be landscapes
They challenge the viewer to not just look, but to see.

Saltworks

You can find other work at Justenahren.com, and on Instagram @justenahren. In addition to being a photographer, I’m a poet with two published collections, A Machine for Remembering, and A Strange Catechism; and an EP The War for the Valley, available on Itunes, Pandora and other music streaming platforms.