Evan Joseph, Erial Dusk, 2015. Location: New York.

My photography in this exhibition is concerned with the outward projection of New York City as it is presented to the world at large in the 21st century, striving to offer an idealized view of reality and the possibility that architecture can be transformative, elevating the human experience. In creating brand-defining images for the most famous buildings in the world, from One World Trade to The Empire State Building to the emerging super-tall towers of “Billionaire’s Row,” my work defines the aspirational aesthetic of “luxury architecture,” using form and space to frame the promise of the cityscape and evoke both desire and awe.
In the evolving landscape of New York, I am fortunate to have a front-row seat on the rapid rise and transfiguration of the newest and greatest monuments of the city. Each of these buildings is at the grandest scale of human effort, on the largest stage in the world, and is dedicated by their creators to the perfect match of time and space, the delicate dance of defining their moment with the tools to support daily life. It is my job and my privilege to ensure that the craft and symbology of every design gets captured for history, contextualized for our unique moment and reimagined as fine art.
I am so often perched on the edge of a rooftop waiting for the “magic hour” or dangling over a skyscraper from the open door of a helicopter that the sky over New York feels like my native habitat. I am drawn to the intoxicating palette that is New York from above where weather and wattage mix with glass, steel, and stone in the endless visual variations that inspired this body of work. Whether I am aiming to reinterpret a well-known landmark or to build abstractions from the grid below, I twist, turn and climb to capture that perfect moment when light and geometry develop into color and composition.
The juxtaposition of gilt and grit required to build any part of the New York landscape hits every viewer in the heart as well as the eyes. I work to fill my urban still lifes with this same amalgam, combining shape and light to at once reveal the details of individual design and to mold disparate parts into a harmonious whole. Back in my earliest days as an artist, I carefully created still life compositions to paint and draw. Now, I focus on creating compositions from the built environment itself that ignite the drama of architecture in the imagination of the viewer and help to transform the urban experience into the sublime.