In 2007 I boarded a plane in New York City heading towards Lama, NM. Landing in Albquerque by way of Houston, I found Jessica’s old gold Volvo sedan in the airport parking lot. I was told the keys would be hidden on the front left tire where she had left it several days before. I found the car and the keys and drove the 3 hours north up into Lama where I spent the next two weeks living in the shrine-like home of 60’s painter Bill Girsh. That was where The Odysseus began.
Up until that point the last 10 years of my travel had been centered around the artists I traveled with, the cities we found ourselves wandering in late at night. After all those years of wandering back and forth across America, I found myself alone up in the high desert; I’ve heard that living up close to the mountains of New Mexico has a humbling affect on the artists, that for years artists have found themselves dwarfed by the peaks and humbled in its shadow.
The Odysseus is a series of American landscapes taken during the years of 2007-2010. I found myself circling cities like satellites; following the roads that lead deeper into the vanishing wilderness. It comes at a time when the wildness of America is shrinking, in every form. I found myself fascinated with the idea that America used to be a wild landscape, completely untamed. I had been off and on the road for 10 years but now I found myself driving different roads, looking for points to stand on over-looking the valleys, from Atlantic to Pacific, looking for points of isolation.
All images © Mikael Kennedy
Every week the guys at Dead Porcupine Mag choose a photographic work among their publications to be featured on Dude Magazine.
Dead Porcupine Mag, founded and curated by Raffaele Capasso and Francesco Claudio Cipolletta is a free online blog/magazine which aims to showcase talented photographers from around the world together with reporting hot topics and articles about contemporary photography. We strongly believe photography is about sharing ideas, emotions and experiences: that’s why we encourage fellow photographers and artists to contribute with their works.
