Chandelier, Chicago by Matthew Nighswander

Matthew Nighswander

Currently residing in Chicago, IL

Website: www.mattnighswander.com

Work Statement:
Project Statement: Chicagoland

When I first moved to Chicago, I was slightly confused by the term "Chicagoland." I heard it used in TV and radio ads when I wasn't quite paying attention and I wondered initially if it might be an amusement park or an enormous mall. I've chosen Chicagoland for the working title of my project not because I am interested in documenting the wide expanse of the Chicago metro region (in fact, the vast majority of these pictures were all shot within Chicago's city limits) but because of the psychological space the word implies to me. The pictures were taken in Chicago, but the best ones seem only loosely tethered to the reality from which they spring. If they are about sprawl and the forlorn spaces of generic architecture it is at least partly because these spaces are where the transformative powers of photography can have the greatest effect; where the photographic image can create a sense of drama and psychological tension that may not have been present in the original scene.

Bio:
I grew up in a large, creaky colonial house in a small town in New Hampshire. Though I was not a photo major, I began shooting seriously in college, inspired primarily by the great "street" photographers: Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt, etc. After college I lived in New York, where I played in a band you've never heard of for many years and worked at The Associated Press as a photo editor. My photos were mostly kept to myself until I was accepted into an MFA program at Columbia College Chicago. I've just finished the program and though I will be leaving Chicago with some regret, my wife and I are returning to New York where I will begin working as the archivist for VII photos later this summer. I'm 36.