Nothing of Weeds by Ryan Arthurs

Issue 150

My aim is to explore the interplay of degradation and verdancy across rural landscapes within western New York. Weeds and flora within this series are a doubled metaphor for the preponderance of right-wing ideologies in rural communities, while speaking to the struggles of finding and maintaining presence as a queer person. These narratives struggle against one another throughout the series—in photographs made during the preceding presidential election, its aftermath, and through the aggregate of a global pandemic—adding
tension to otherwise bucolic landscapes. As with earlier bodies of work, this series explores a multitude of histories and narratives, both personal and regional.

Ryan Arthurs has been making photographs in and about western New York and the Midwest for several years. Growing up in Buffalo, NY, these are places that feel familiar for the artist, yet as a queer man Arthurs has also experienced them to be alienating spaces, where maintaining identity and presence can be a struggle. In Nothing But Weeds Arthurs interrogates the tensions that exist in this part of the world, looking to the interplay of verdant growth and hostile ideologies across the rural landscapes surrounding Buffalo. Weeds serve as a metaphor for growth and persistence, and Arthurs’ photographs envision a vibrant, utopia-like Eden, where weeds and intentionally cultivated flowers and fruit trees blossom and thrive together.

Ryan Arthurs lives and works in Buffalo, NY.
www.ryanarthurs.com | @ryanarthursphoto

Images © Ryan Arthurs