Unreal City, Unreal Country

Exhibited @ www.gallerythe.org
November 10 through December 20, 2009
Work by: 
Carl Gunhouse
Tiana Peterson
Lauren Portada
Christine Rogers

The stability of the landscape beneath our feet is a constant that we 
all take for granted. It is the template for all existence and culture. Yet 
due to today’s selling, reselling, and speculation we find ourselves 
experiencing an uncertainty about land use not seen in our country since 
the Depression.

Each unique in their approach, Christine Rogers, Tiana Peterson, Carl 
Gunhouse and Lauren Portada all deal with the current state of landscape: 
the seduction of the suburban, our utopian ideals, the realities of 
development, and the erosion of our hopes and dreams. 

Christine Rogers directly addresses the promise offered by a land lot 
with a home, the assurance that once purchased, a home will provide a 
lasting sense of security, a comfortable framework for personal and 
family happiness. Her photographs lovingly depict the sunny, soft-focus 
fantasy that suburbia promise residents.

Tiana Peterson’s collages of Frank Gehry’s architectural pop-up books 
present an ideal artistic vision of land use, where we find a deconstructed 
landscape inhabited by undulating architectural sleights of hand, poetic 
references to Gehry’s work.

Carl Gunhouse makes landscape photographs of housing developments 
to confront the stark reality that the suburban ideal is vanishing. The 
security once assured with a home outside the city has morphed into 
a blind alley of devalued homes and insurmountable debt.  

Lauren Portada’s paintings depict a space of post-apocalyptic wilderness. 
Her dark, murky, and unrecognizable landscapes depict the fear that these 
once promising ideal neighborhoods will be abandoned, becoming a 
wasteland of unfinished roads and overgrown lots.