Domestic Wilderness: Darren Rigo

Discover: Darren Rigo 

Cedar Rail Alignment 2010 © Darren Rigo Photography

Stone Wall 2010 2010 © Darren Rigo Photography

Artist Statement 

Some say nature, in the purest sense of the idea, is that which is untouched by man. If this is the case then nature no longer exists. There is no wilderness left. We have already mapped, documented, photographed and named every part of our world. We have taken it and made it ours. In doing so we have left an indelible impression upon the land.  The signs of our early intervention with nature, from centuries ago, are still present in our backyard today.

In Domestic Wilderness I am revisiting and reauthoring sites and objects where the intervention of man in nature is already present. I gather and replace these objects on my parents’ small farm; the land I call home. The materials I use range from cedar rails, to abandoned bricks, to fieldstones. I rearrange them in absurd and dysfunctional manners on sites such as depressions where earth has been quarried, or among the saplings of an overgrown pasture.

Finally, I photograph these new interventions with their surrounding landscape. The resulting images are a post-Romantic take on our inevitable need to usurp nature. They are served with a contemplative dose of irony since they ultimately add to the very problem they are commenting on.

Fieldstone Redistribution 2010 © Darren Rigo Photography

Cedar Rail Structuration © Darren Rigo Photography

About Darren

Darren Rigo was born and raised in rural southern Ontario. The relationship he has formed with the local landscape heavily informs his work. Now living in downtown Toronto, as a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design, he regularly returns to the local, natural landscape to photograph and collaborate with the land that means so much to him. His images are an attempt to beautify what we normally view as ordinary while they dissect the ways we are connected to nature.

Brick Wall with Snow Mortar 2010 2010 © Darren Rigo Photography

Brick Structuration 2010 © Darren Rigo Photography

Thanks for sharing your work, Darren. For more photography, click here.