06_PH
Below are four slideshows of works from Tom Beresford's photographic portfolio. Large format color c-prints and b+w archival inkjet prints are available for sale at sizes ranging from 16"x20" to 40"x50" (available sizes vary per image). Contact tom (at) thefunctionality (dot) com with any inquiries.
-
Machine Aesthetic (6)
The "Machine Aesthetic" Series Developed out of an interest in the ways that we use or misuse mechanical equipment in the digital age. Formally, these photographs draw upon the conventions of both commercial (automotive) and architectural photography. They are marketing images, but instead of presenting a coherent product for consumption, they depict awkward "hacks" or accidental adjacencies. They eulogize the equipment that they depict, while simultaneously documenting both real and whimsical methods for their reuse or hybridization. -
Monoliths (5)
The "monoliths" Series examines the use of stone both as both a palimpsestic object and as a sign for the idea of permanence in the otherwise destabilized suburban landscape. Stone is widely used as a cladding material in this milieu, to lend the veneer of substance and integrity to thoughtless development. As markets and residents come and go, however, these stone structures inhabit an interesting space between sculpture and flat signage. They often convey an timeless, archaic sublime, in spite of their mass-production. Among these "monoliths" are supports for residential signage (in various states of construction and disuse), maquettes built to show off exterior detailing to home-buyers, a renovated stone wall, a fountain built of artificial stone and pvc pipe. The final photograph depicts the monolithic transformation of a utility meter through lighting. -
Fields and Corners (4)
The "Corners and Fields" Series takes ideal spatial arrangements of corners and fields as its point of departure. The simple geometry of these cartesian tropes offer a reductivist approach to the institutions of landscape (planes) and architectural (boxes) photography. The photographs in this series employ this reductivism to abstract real spaces into universal ones. However, These abstract spaces are always populated by real detritus and small objects. They articulate their ideal "worlds" whimsically as constellations and continents, which form allegories for our own. As real debris from our own world, however, these objects also detail the practical and ideological relationships that give it form, and that result in their own wreckless, entropic discharge. -
St(or)age (7)
The St(or)age series explores what happens when the camera is trained on curious arrangements of objects and spaces that were never meant to be the object of much attention. Architect Rem Koolhaas explains that this condition is now ubiquitous: "Junkspace is draining and is drained in return. Everywhere in Junkspace there are seating arrangements, ranges of modular chairs, even couches, as if the experience Junkspace offers its consumers is significantly more exhausting than any previous spatial sensation; in its most abandoned stretches, you find buffets: utilitarian tables draped in white or black sheets"

