Written by Angelica Cantù Rajnoldi

Edited by Jana Massoud

With his new book Promise Land, American photographic artist, writer, publisher and educator, Gregory Eddi Jones has managed to go beyond the limits of photography as we know it by using this means to create a dream-like but also contemporary visual poem that confuses, amazes and eventually leads to multiple deep reflections about photography and culture.

*Janus Horse in Motion* © Gregory Eddi Jones

The Waste Land written by T.S. Eliot in 1922 has been a great source of inspiration for the contemporary artist. In what is considered the most influential poem of the century, the author gave a vision of modern life as plagued by sordid impulses, widespread apathy and pervasive soullessness. Despite this pessimistic viewpoint, many found in its mythical, religious ending a hope for humanity’s chance for renewal.

A century later, Gregory Eddi Jones borrows some elements from Eliot’s poem structure - five sections with distinct sequencing and rhythms - and takes up the idea of a still-needed renewal, concretizing it through his peculiar technique consisting of the use of archival and advertising photographs as source material, their alteration through several digital and physical transformations and the final creation of painterly works that recall the technique of watercolor.

Thus, the artist’s appropriation and deconstruction of the images in the creation of new ones conveys the urgency of transformation, but also prompts our realization of the failure of the images as a promise of a utopian world. Indeed, in an interview the artist claims that “pictures we see on a regular basis are cleaner, more orderly, and more beautiful than our lived experience”, coming to the conclusion that “just about all photography is a pursuit of this utopian ideal”.

Promise Land is available for purchase on the SPBH Editions website.