New photographs by Nevada artist Philippe Mazaud. These black and white photographs highlight the relationship between inferred fiction and straight documentary.

Mazaud uses traditional means of available light, found situations and an 8” x 10” view camera to capture what appear to be staged realities, signs of an event just before it occurs or traces of evidence found after the fact.

Shot in rural towns in Idaho and Nevada under the night sky, we begin to experience a feeling of absence and mystery at play. Who lives in this town and what are they up to? In Photographer, 1999, commissioned portraits sit in a glowing glass storefront window case with no one to see them. Picture frame samples are perfectly aligned in vertical formation inside and a family portrait lurks in the shadows.