Amy Stein "Domesticated" at Blue Sky Gallery

I am ga-ga over Amy Stein’s photo series: Domesticated. There are few shows that I see that get my heart pumping like this one does. The work is both beautiful and sad. She has taken the humble snapshot and turned it into a group of powerful photos that serve as a spotlight on our relationship with nature and the costs involved in suburban development. Her photos are poetic snapshots of the awkward merging of man and nature in America’s suburbs.

Amy Stein at Blue Sky Gallery
One side of the photo series is of animals that often roam suburban borders; coyotes scavenging trash cans, bears with garbage bags over their heads, bears near swimming pools, and cougars in subdivisions under construction. The other is of man-made nature; bird houses, liberty gardens, and green houses. All of the photos are an empathetic look at these animal’s life on the edge of oblivion.

Amy Stein at Blue Sky Gallery

In this shot of a greenhouse with a deer, I love the ridiculous orderliness of the plants. Wild nature seemingly tamed into rectangles is still nature no matter what order you impose on it. I like this photo especially because it manages to be “cute” while at the same time feeling kind of sad and even a bit lonely.

This series speaks to so much about what I’m interested in with my own work and it was an incredibly inspiring show. I got myself a copy of the catalog for the show and I can’t wait to pour over the pages.

Amy Stein at Blue Sky Gallery

Artist Statement for Domesticated from Amy Stein’s website:

My photographs serve as modern dioramas of our new natural history. Within these scenes I explore our paradoxical relationship with the “wild” and how our conflicting impulses continue to evolve and alter the behavior of both humans and animals. We at once seek connection with the mystery and freedom of the natural world, yet we continually strive to tame the wild around us and compulsively control the wild within our own nature. Within my work I examine the primal issues of comfort and fear, dependence and determination, submission and dominance that play out in the physical and psychological encounters between man and the natural world. Increasingly, these encounters take place within the artificial ecotones we have constructed that act as both passage and barrier between domestic space and the wild.

The photographs in this series are constructed based on real stories from local newspapers and oral histories of intentional and random interactions between humans and animals. The narratives are set in and around Matamoras, a small town in Northeast Pennsylvania that borders a state forest.

Amy Stein’s latest series: Domesticated is on view at the Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon Through the month of July. She will be giving a lecture and signing books on August 1st. Check with Blue Sky for details and time.
Much better photos of her work can be found on her website.


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