Artist's Statement

Garrett Grove

​Journey to the Interior focuses on themes of identity, anxiety and the current state of the American Dream, such as it was in the rural communities I lived in and traveled through while working on this project. The photographs were taken during the years leading up to, and following, the 2016 presidential election.  It was a time of personal disruption and self-examination, and as a result this project has become equal parts sociology and autobiography, reflecting my own psyche as much as it does that of the people and places I encountered while on the road.  I went into these places with the intention of understanding something apart from myself, and in the process, created a picture of America that mirrors my own confusion of navigating a cultural identity that time is moving past.