Nick Meyer

 

Nick Meyer (B.1981) lives and works in Western Massachusetts with his wife, dog and two young daughters. He is the recipient of the Pace Gallery Award and the Barclay Simpson Prize. He earned his BFA at Massachusetts College of Art and his MFA from California College of the Arts. “Either Limits or Contradictions” his second monograph (Published, Daylight 2017), explored the anxieties of living, dying and the passage of time from a personal vantage point. The project appeared in TIME Lightbox, Huck Magazine, Musee, L’oel De La Photographie and Ain’t-Bad. His work has been shown both nationally and internationally and is included in numerous private collections.

 

The Local

I roam the same streets and roads everyday, the same streets I grew up on. I am looking for ways to get lost, trying to find the parts of my home I have ignored.
This is a rural area. Pockets of industry, now defunct, made way for these small towns to prosper and establish themselves here. The tool manufacturers and paper mills arrived in the early 20th century. The factories grew the towns at pace with the rest of the country as the industrial revolution took hold. By the 50’s the last plant had been sold to a larger company and its doors shuttered.
Two major roads pass through here, carrying people traveling to and from the larger northeastern cities. Perhaps this is what keeps this place from sinking into record as another town devoured by a culture that no longer needs it.
I see the same faces most days, these faces that have become the background. Day after day sitting on the same benches, surrounded by the same buildings, watching businesses come and go as the bricks slowly crumble and become dust. In my life I have seen houses and shops erected, razed, burnt and rebuilt; but for all that trouble the feeling of stasis still looms.
This work is as much a critique of disintegrating histories and a rural plight as it is a love letter to a familiar but unrecognizable place.

To view more of Nick Meyer’s work please visit his website.