Suburbs as Land Art: Drawings by Ross Racine

Canadian artist Ross Racine exacerbates the inherent irrationality of suburbs by drawing aerial views of invented sprawling communities. In an interview on a Urbantimes, the artist underlines the formal affinities between the linearity of real streets’ design and the “lines of the artist’s drawing on paper“, reading these aerial views as a large drawing.

The recent development of his own vocubulary allows the artist to avoid the use of a real aerial image as a reference. This change permits the artist to focus on the invention of ever new patterns of growth.

I came to this particular subject matter because of a fascination, which I have had since childhood, with aerial views and maps. I get inspiration from a variety of sources. From the domain of urban planning, as in contemporary, historical or utopian city design. More specifically, I chose suburbia because it seemed to offer the most visual appeal and artistic possibilities, for creating personal images and for exploring formal and conceptual themes. Formally, among the various types of subject matter visible from the air, I was spontaneously attracted to suburbs because I find an analogy between their linear design and the lines of an artist’s drawing on paper. One may consider a suburb viewed from above as a large drawing. And in terms of content, suburbs are to me a particularly relevant subject, symbolic of our global society, as they are the urban constructions that most clearly illustrate population growth, extensive land occupation, and wasteful overconsumption. (Ross Racine in an interview with Josh O’Conner on Urbantimes.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All images © Ross Racine