Markings, 2021-2026

Field Photography, Field Markings

Across the United States, a cryptic language is painted onto sidewalks, lawns, and roadsides almost every day. The color-coded lines, arrows, and symbols left by utility locators mark what lies unseen beneath the ground. These markings are ubiquitous and largely unread; most people walk past them without a second look. Yet they carry a quiet power. They gesture toward an entire hidden infrastructure, a subterranean landscape of pipes, cables, and conduits that we rarely have reason to picture. In doing so, they offer an odd kind of invitation: to imagine what is underneath, to conjure an alternative landscape, or even a lost history, running just below the one we walk on. For many years, I have documented utility markings through a photographic practice, collecting examples of this visual language as it appears across different cities, seasons, and terrains. This body of work traces how the markings intersect with the built environment, how they sit against grass, asphalt, gravel, and curb, and how their vocabulary of color and gesture shifts from place to place while remaining instantly recognizable. This ongoing archive is the foundation from which the current proposal grows.

2023

2023