Archival inkjet print on baryta paper, 16 x 10 in, edition of 20 +2AP. Walnut frame made by hand in the Artists Artists studio. Includes archival matting and UV-filtering acrylic glazing (OP3).

Clay Mills, Untitled, 2022. Archival inkjet print on baryta paper, 16 x 10 in, edition of 20 +2AP.

The photos of Clay Mills have a nostalgic charm. Those who grew up in the suburbs of the late 90s and mid 00s will recognize these images of nowhere and anyplace, populated by half-familiar figures, that capture the liminal quality of middle America, the banal, featureless architecture of suburbia which is at the same time a landscape of love and desire, an object of yearning and scorn for those who inhabit it. The photos are stark and direct in their presentation. Mills’ heavy use of on-camera flash desaturates and flattens the image; the large depth of field renders nearly everything in focus; and his way of composing makes the resulting image feel immediate and spontaneous, probably more so than in actual fact since a lot of what makes these photos so great is how clearly they direct the eye of the viewer around the image, drawing it first to a central subject, usually placed in the midground and brightly lit, and then out towards the edge of the frame and back via a network of vertical and diagonal lines, so that the subject seems to exercise a magnetic pull on the viewer’s attention. Superficially, they look like snapshots, but there’s something strange and foreboding within them that can’t quite be explained by the things they depict. The unnerving quality the photos possess is rather an effect of their evocative power. By imitating the style of untrained, amateur photography and turning it into a consistent formal language, Mills is able to produce images that momentarily serve as substitute memories for the viewer, conjuring up a non-existent past into being. They beg the unsettling question: Why have I lived my life as I have?