Tim Roda’s black and white photographs, and now 8 mm films, have always focused on family and the personal past as a site for individual and communal mythmaking. His latest work explores themes of transition, hinting at a little boy’s memory and commentary on immigrating to America from another land, assimilation, and a lifetime of longing.

Roda frequently blurs the distinction between autobiographical and art historical references. The acts of creation-self, artistic, ethical—are inseparable in his work. Incorporating his son and wife into his photographs while enacting familial scenes that are personal and primal, Roda collapses the past and present as well as private and public.

The images are staged, employing the heightened visual vocabulary of tableaux; this formality contrasts starkly with the rough-hewn hand-built sets and symbolically charged props used. It is all given another framing in its production; technical imperfections and blemishes are integral to Roda’s work, recalling the intentional embrace of a rough aesthetic seen in the work of the Starn Brothers and Mark Morrisroe.

- Nate Lippens