Photographer Edward Burtynsky captures the vibrant, seemingly extraterrestrial topographies of a remote region in northeastern Spain in new series of photographs entitled Dryland Farming. From a 2,000 foot aerial view, these landscapes read like abstract maps, as if Kandinsky had taken a stab at cartography. More after the break.

Burtynsky’s photographs tell the story of the Monegros region, where generations of farmers have tried to stake out farmland in the gypsum foothills despite an apparent scarcity of water. Dry, chalk-like lines, textured swaths of dirt, and gridded rows of trees reveal what is both a desolate and fertile terrain. The images bear resemblance to aerial views of Leavittown, in which rows of identical houses dot a curving, manicured topography, expressing man’s resolute will to colonize America’s natural landscape.

In the Monegros region, man is not quite there yet. Nature fights back with a jagged set of teeth and claws, evoked by the rugged geometries of the land and the bold patches of topography that twist and convulse along highly expressive lines. In the flurry of interlocking patterns and colors, one can pick out a miniscule house or two, rogue architecture in the midst of a rich expanse of semi-wilderness. Likewise, the farmland reveals moments of order, but from these remarkable perspectives, the land is vastly untamed, refusing to heed like the American suburbs. Here, man’s will to control is tangled up within nature’s sobering beauty, producing incredibly original works of art that buzz with the energy of Abstract Expressionism and grip us with the visceral quality of primitive cave paintings.

Dryland Farming is on show concurrently at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery and the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York until December 10, 2011.

[All images via Artnet]

by Kelly Chan

posted in Uncategorized

tagged aerial, Aerial View, Art, cartography, Farming, Leavittown, map, mapping, photography, spain, suburbs

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