We had the opportunity to speak to Caroline de Mauriac whose landscape photography work was recently on view in the 2024 edition of our public outdoor exhibition, Vision(ary): Portraits of Communities, Cultures and Environments. An interview with the artist follows.
Caroline de Mauriac, photographer, assemblage artist, and poet, spent her youth in New England and New York’s Hudson Valley. Following decades living in the Midwest and Rockies, she recently returned to her ancestral roots in Maine. She holds degrees in Anthropology and Museum Studies with an emphasis in Material Culture and Comparative Religion. She has a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University and a Master of Arts from Denver University. Her professional career spanned work in museums and environmental organizations.
Although a mostly self-taught artist, Caroline has taken courses and workshops through Maine Media, Merry Meeting Community Arts Education, and with photographer Olga Merrill. She shows in galleries in Maine, including Meetinghouse Arts, The Maine Gallery, and River Arts. Her work often appears in various art and literary journals. Her images also hang in private collections in Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. Samples of her work can be viewed at www.ieye.blog and at instagram.com/caroline.de.mauriac.
The tenuous relationship between the human and the other-than-human world inhabits her photographic practice, her assemblage pieces, and her poetry. She recently published a collection of her work, Everything Breathes: An Exhibition Catalog and Chapbook.
Follow de Mauriac on Instagram: @caroline.de.mauriac
What initially drew you to document “synthetic” landscapes, as you define them, rather than more “natural” environs?
Much of my ‘soul feeding time’ comes when I am out in nature and being fully in its cyclical presence through the seasons. When shooting in places impacted by humans, I frequently focus on capturing the architectural wonders of human endeavors. Having anthropological training my interests often find me in places of archeological, historical, and cultural significance.
Over time, I’ve started drawing a conceptual line between ancient ruins and the modern abandoned structures that have been scattered over the landscape during the last century. A lot of infrastructure has been abandoned over the years. The remains have become regular features in the landscape with more accumulating every day. I started experiencing them for their uncomfortable permanence in contrast to the cyclical nature of decomposing organic debris. Human structural detritus has become a global phenomenon, surrounding us everywhere and we barely give it a second look. We have no use for the remains, commonly averting our eyes while they live out their existence as pernicious blights on the earth slowly leeching their toxins and inorganic residues into the land, air, and water. The prolonged process of their dissolution manifests across a time frame which far exceeds what will likely be the planetary reign of humans.
Was there any sort of transition in how you started documenting human structures versus how you photograph them now?
I’ve shot in a range of styles and genres over the years. In the built environment, my eye is drawn to architectural features, especially doors and windows. All the better if they are historically important or visually interesting.
In recent years, my visual interest has shifted to include deteriorating doors and windows because they possess unique features that manifest in uncontrolled ways. Unpredictable forms emerge as part of the inevitable deterioration process. Doors and windows as symbols in their decomposition became entry points for me to an expanded view of omnipresence and the long-term impact of abandoned human constructions.
Take us on a shooting day with you. What gear do you usually work with? And what are the qualities that draw you in the most when choosing a frame?
I carry my camera (an Olympus O-5 with 12-200 mm lens – that’s it) with me every day, everywhere. Rarely do I go out with preconceived notions or pre-preparations for a “shooting” day. Intuition and spontaneity are the only rules my shooting process.
What thoughts have you grappled with when it comes to picturing the long-lasting marks left by human civilization on the planet through the impermanent and at times immaterial medium of photography?
All things are impermanent – even things that will outlast humanity. I don’t think much about questions surrounding the impermanent nature of photography. I invest my thoughts in what am looking at vs what I see and how the sense of it is transmitted through the lens of my camera and the filter of my inner vision.
If Beyond the Anthropocene contributes in any way to a broader human experience as to our place and role in planetary processes that enhances awareness, compassion and/or sustainability in human action and consciousness – well wouldn’t that just be something? But concerning myself with the end product’s longevity or its meaning in the future is akin for me to trying to invent a full-blown cultural myth or predict what I will dream tonight. I just don’t know what will reveal itself next. The outcome is more organic than I am able to foresee. All creative endeavors expand awareness and human consciousness – almost always in ways we cannot predict. My photographic efforts are, by and large, an organic practice with little concern for its long-term resilience in the material world. All things end, but the creative process is an incomplete and imperfect product of one’s artistic vision. There’s always the possibility of another shot that will, with luck, express another intriguing variation on a theme.
Are there any photographers focused on human constructions and landscapes that have inspired you?
The iconic and groundbreaking images of Stephen Shore’s work, especially in the series’ Surfaces and Uncommon Places, were among the earliest influences for me that loosened my grip and opened the possibilities of what photography can do and mean for me as an artist.
I find Sean Kernan’s work deeply personal and moving. The Missing Pictures is not directly related to this project, but his technique and open approach to the art form speaks to me, specifically what he presents in his publication Looking into the Light.
David Veldman’s work in abstract minimalism and architecture are some of my favorite images to consider in thinking about some of my own subject matter choices. His collection ‘Abandoned’, places the daily detritus of human habitation in the landscape in a way that is easily accessible and relatable.
I am captivated and feel a great simpatico with Edward Burtynsky’s work, A Visual Archaeology which is his contribution to the Anthropocene Project, “a multidisciplinary body of work combining fine art photography, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research to investigate human influence on the state, dynamic, and future of the Earth.”
©Caroline de Mauriac, Fuel Oil. Auburn – Here fossil fuel is palatably packaged, to enhance the landscape with a joyful presentation ironically suggestive of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
