Artist's Statement

Todd I. Lauther

Between The Devil and The City

Between the Devil and the City is a body of work that uses my own life experiences to explore different themes which include loss, memory, religion, masculinity, and legacy. By taking inspiration from music and literature, I use a non-narrative approach to image making in order to build associations with images in a style similar to poetry.

After being away from the area that I was raised in, Southern New Jersey, for an extended amount of time, I have found myself back and unfamiliar with the place that I called my home. Using photography as a tool for understanding, I cast a variety of different people to serve as characters and archetypes while I explore and meditate on the complex negotiations that surround the idea of returning home.

There is a myth that an American man must leave his home in order to find his way in the world. Mid-twenty century literature and many men throughout the historical canon of photography glorified the American road trip and a rigid sense of masculinity, but what happens after the journey?