From beginning to end, Shane Rocheleau’s Lakeside – a photographic glimpse into the community of Lakeside, Virginia – is a wholly engaging, mysterious, and dystopic body of work that provides visual and metaphorical space for the reader to reflect on the fragile state of America’s union. The cover of the book is tantalizing in its rich blue-green cloth, featuring a mirrored diagram taken from video feed of a predator drone. Tick marks line portions of the left and top edges, a cross replaces the traditional cross-hatch at the center of the frame, and the reflected letters and numbers on the border feign the task of providing specific geographical information. The machine-vision of these tangible, yet cryptic reference points work together to set the tone for the content of the book, and gesture to ideas of predator and prey, conspirator and accomplice.
Lakeside begins with a visual preface by Rocheleau and publisher Jason Koxvold entitled “American History.” The preface, consisting of 111 sequential frames over an 8-page black and white insert, is poetic and lively. An abstraction of points shifts to a potential swarm of birds with the unveiling of a horizon, and then back to an untethered mass in the clouds. It’s easy to draw parallels in this sequence to the ideal of the American Dream; floating in the theoretical abyss, and consisting of as much promise as formlessness. Such visual movement and rearrangement provides a conceptual levity that is quickly grounded, and rendered sardonic, by the weight of the subsequent images in the book. Through this thoughtful preface, Rocheleau and Koxvold point to the undeniable foundation of violence, racism, injustice, entitlement, power, and hierarchy that are inextricably connected to contemporary life in America.
The project is parsed into seven chapters, each beginning with an isolated still life on a newsprint-like paper, followed by a series of images made within the community of Lakeside. Rocheleau has a keen eye for composition, and he shifts subject matter with fluidity while maintaining a consistency in mood and gravity through his control of color, tonal range, and texture. He smoothly weaves portraits of local, middle-aged, caucasian men with a variety of depictions of the surrounding environments, both natural and man-made, interior and exterior, wide and closeup. His consistent, restrained use of natural light highlights the banality of this place while articulating the contrast between the expectations and reality of assumed American prosperity.
Midway through the progression there is a colorful act break, that, at first glance, deceptively appears to provide a respite from Rocheleau’s narrative. What begins with pages of color fields and flowers, moves to tight crops of found imagery, and transitions to darker images of foliage. The appropriated images of flaunting smiles, authoritative gazes, and seductive touches from white figures are displayed in visible CMYK halftones, emphasizing the reach, ubiquity, and myopia of such 20th-century commercial imagery. The interruption of these images with those of bullets hanging in the air is a poignant note from Rocheleau that emphasizes the violence and malice that are inherently embedded in “good old days'' American propaganda. Through the various points of access within the content and the rhythmic pacing, Rocheleau weaves a potent narrative throughout Lakeside while still leaving space for viewer interpretation. The images are beautiful, if haunting, and the monograph is carefully crafted in all aspects. Gnomic is consistently impressive in each of their projects, and Lakeside is an excellent addition to their solid collection of books.
Details:
• Published 2021
• 240x280x18mm
• 148 + 16 pages
• 70 color plates, 7 black & white plates
• Edition of 500; first edition, first printing: $65
