AMARGOSA VALLEY, NV (2023)

In April 2022 at the PACE Gallery in Manhattan I glimpsed a photograph which led me on a year long inquiry into the intersections of geometry, water, resources and civilisation. The photograph was by Emmet Gowin, an American artist who flew over the Midwest in the late 80s and 90s taking photos of what he termed ‘the 100 circle farm’. Weeks later I made it to Arizona and Nevada and experienced the farms up close. They are the result of ‘centre-pivot irrigation’, ¼ mile-long hosepipes-on-wheels tracing a circular pattern where resulting crops grow in otherwise barren dirt.

After spending time amongst these green halos I continued the exploration online, dedicating months to sifting satellite imagery of the ochre desserts to locate the half-mile diameter circles. I developed a production process which intimately spoke to the matter, involving laser-etching water colour paper repeatedly drenched with thin washes of paint. 

The circular farms are complex entities. They allow valuable crops to be grown in inhospitable lands. They drain the life out of rivers which consequently never make it to the sea. In present times, they are feeding a biofuel industry heavily subsidised by the US Government. 

I’ll leave the last word to Gowin, who has said in later years: “I came to realise that beauty can also be the agent of difficult and unwanted news”.