dead of night

dead of night (or in PDF form here)

An Artist Statement – Nick Rudnicki

It can only happen at night.

During the day, the pressures of deadlines, errands, and obligations keep us focused in on details. Consequently our relationship with our environment - our surroundings – becomes mitigated and restrained. Our spaces are not experienced as a whole beautiful entity, but rather they are seen merely in terms of their function.

At night, when these distractions dissipate, we can finally allow ourselves to fully see the spaces and places around us. We can finally get to know them, instead of merely use them. Our now unfettered engagement with these places is made all the keener by the sublime hush of their emptiness. We can now get lost in the geometry, the vastness, the emptiness and the sheer presence of the places.

What is more, the spaces I photograph are ones still very much haunted by the smell of their arrested function. They are fresh corpses waiting on the autopsy slab for re-animation. This loads the space with the eerie presence of a temporary graveyard. This uncanny tension combines with the aesthetic grace and austerity of their profound emptiness to create a truly provoking image.