Urban Constructs

Hardcover, 42 pages, full color

10.4” x 9”

2008

ISBN 978-0-981-7909-0-9

Reviewed by Norman Locks, Professor of Art

In this book of photographs, Richard Stultz presents a confident, precise, ordered world—a private and unique view by a mature photographer.

 The book’s journey begins with images framed tightly with few references and only optical access--surfaces of color and ambiguities of space created by shadow and light.   The architectural landscapes transition from modern minimalist pages to images of more expansive space and suggestions of time and age.  Human wear and tear is introduced, along with heightened visual activity and complexity.  A meticulous landscape is maintained throughout.

 These photographs clarify the world of two-dimensional planes and enable eyes and mind to travel organized fragmented constructions.  The scale is monumental to miniature.  The photographs are paired to animate the surfaces as well as the space.  It is difficult to picture ourselves inside the frame, and the only people pictured are caricatures suspended in time, frame within frame. 

I am curious about the immediate absence of nature, followed by controlled threads and interwoven suggestions of nature offered sparingly--part of a tree, decorative flowers in an austere landscape of pots, sparse cropped desert landscape, a landscape of clouds reflected in glass, a red bouquet, newly planted landscaping, and the opportunistic grass following cracks in an asphalt lot.  These are photographs of human construction offering a celebration and a critique.

There is a humor in Richard Stultz’s subtle details, nature and still life, and the broad expanses of building materials. A Starbucks cup, a singular temporal element, is evidence of some human presence, standing alone in a swept cityscape.  I can’t help thinking of these documents as social paintings, delicately drawn structures and space, poignant absence, so many inaccessible doors and windows, each a story to imagine.

The photographs in this book are authentic images, made with honesty and dedication.  They represent Richard Stultz well and present sufficient visual material to engage us quietly for some time.

University of California, May 2008