Set within a 53-foot dry van trailer in the industrial suburb of Sauget, Illinois, Freight Line explores the transitory life cycle of manufactured objects and present-day systems of distribution. Fences, trucks, boxes, bags and factory equipment appear in collagraph prints, porcelain lamps and a cast of delivery debris. Items and machines associated with rapid production are fabricated using tedious, hand-built processes in traditional and unconventional materials. The taxonomy of objects depicted in each print are curated to mimic the fleeting logic of a contemporary consumer. The work is rendered to present both functional specificity and the simple whimsy of single task-invention. Despite the implications of chronic consumption, there is a strange elegance to the system. Whiffs of the peripheral environment are flocked onto prints as bird song notations, and etched into steel as vines clinging to chain links. Content throughout this exhibition is appropriated from the artist’s experiences in Sauget as both an Amazon fulfillment center employee, and a conservation ornithologist.

Funding for this exhibition is generously provided by the Regional Arts Commission in Saint Louis. 

Photography by Dave Moore and the artist