In this new series, icons of America's 20th Century are reevaluated and redefined. The shapes of our iconic history are here in stark silhouette: at first glance, a heart, a muscle car, a house, a fork and knife, a Christmas tree, all cut against a solid black universe. Their interior is a collage of content. Drawing on the literal and on the symbolic, the images that fill, float and breathe in and out of these silhouettes, are at once familiar and new. It is this juxtaposition of the ingrained and the unveiled that draws the viewer ever deeper into these photo collages. As the eye and mind wander in and out and around these iconic shapes, the viewer's own sense of complex ideas fill each image: home, love, nature, spirituality, power...

Americans have a relationship with their world that is explored in these photo collages. How we, as Americans, relate to our world is ever increasingly through a clearly identified iconic history. We experience the stark beauty of the desert and the openness of America's west through the fast moving muscle car racing down the open highway. The forest we relate to is, for many, only experienced as the annual Christmas tree in our homes. It is these types of relationships that define a cultural consciousness as Americans relate to the world around them in their everyday lives.

Identifying America's 20th Century icons and renewing their value and meaning through content, is the intent behind this collection of photographs. Each image draws on the comfortably familiar and then, through reflection of our modern cultural notions and real daily experiences, reevaluates the meaning of these symbols. This series defines, as well as allows the viewer room to digest and study their own relationship to the ideas encapsulated in each image.

Each new century has a period of renewal and discard from the last. It is a natural process much akin to pruning a mature plant. These works reflect the first growth of that renewal, giving America and the world at large, a fresh look at the symbols of our culture and our lives.

-BAQI