Mountains + Valleys uses images of the American West as a starting point to interpret and confront cultural myths surrounding the representation of that landscape. Titled for the two primary folds in Origami, the work uses physical alterations to create relationships between formal geometries and natural spaces that question the illusionistic representation of the photographic image. I travel to these sites to photograph them; then I print these images, fold them, and then re-photograph them. These images are simultaneously manipulated and yet photographically real. The geometric impositions onto the photo-object impress an aesthetic ideal onto the landscape, scarring the very thing they attempt to embellish. The fantasy of an untouched and untouchable vista is interrupted.
