portentous: of, relating to, or constituting a portent (suspense, portentous foreshadowing, hints of sinister and violent mysteries)

geomorphology: the study of landforms and the processes that shape them

The Basin and Range Province is a vast ancient landscape, shaped by geologic forces for millennia. Large sections of this landscape, existing within the American west, have been drawn upon, altered, carved, and hollowed by the nuclear era (1945-present). During this relatively brief span of time humans have unleashed a potent geologic force upon the landscape- the nuclear. Stark landforms result and demarcate the conjunction of the nuclear and the geologic. They are often remarkably basic, as if simplified. Contained within the depths and existing at the surfaces of these landforms, the geologic and the nuclear have been irrevocably bound.

The coupling of nuclear and geologic elements on the earth’s surface has furthered the establishment of what some scientists have declared to be the present geologic Age, the Anthropocene. This qualitatively new chapter in the geologic history of the planet will be traceable as a distinct layer of sediment containing elements uniquely human in their design, such as nuclear fallout. The duration and degree of human intervention into the earth's geology will draw the line that will define the Anthropocene. The thickness of its stratum is unknowable from here.

The arrival of the Anthropocene presses humans to acknowledge their position and impact upon planet-wide ecosystems. Our arrival at a precipice of our own making, I believe, has been greatly accelerated by the development, testing, and storage of atomic materials upon and within the earth. These acts have significantly altered the earth and it’s topographies with lasting effect.

Through forms of aesthetic inquiry such as drawing and photography, I seek to visually communicate the extent to which humans’ nuclear ambitions have acted upon and through the landscapes of the American west since 1945- and have affected the larger ecological sphere. I sense that resulting works hold deep poignancy for the contemporary moment.

- Jamie Kruse, winter 2009