Habitat Machines by David Trautrimas

Habitat Machines by David Trautrimas
Published by photo-eye Editions, 2009
Edition of 50
Tiered pricing structure ($1,500 US for editions 20-30 at time of writing)

To describe Toronto-based artist David Trautrimas photo-constructions as imaginative is barely to scratch their immaculately assembled surfaces. For the past few years, Trautrimas has pursued a laborious practice that involves disassembling common household appliances (such as fans, televisions, toasters and lamps), photographing the objects individual pieces, and then digitally reconfiguring them into images of fantastical, yet uncannily realistic, buildings. The prints, often in editions of 10 or less, have become increasingly sought after as the young artist’s work has been shown internationally.

As their first publication, the Sante Fe, New Mexico-based photo-eye Editions has published Habitat Machines, a handmade, signed and numbered limited edition book of twelve archival pigment ink prints of Trautrimas work. Limited to 50 copies and four proofs, it includes the entire suite of images from the Habitat Machines series. Enclosed in a gleaming, engraved anodized aluminium box that echoes the industrial feel of the images, the book also comes with an exclusive pigment ink print entitled Lighter Lofts, also signed and numbered by the artist.

Also available through Trautrimas’ Toronto gallery, Le, is a set of 10 digital prints shot by the artist while travelling by train (on the “Southwest Chief”) from Chicago to Lamy, New Mexico. The black and white prints, especially those of industrial buildings, reflects Trautrimas’s affinity with the work of photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher, who, starting in the 1950s, documented the rapidly disappearing industrial architecture in their native Germany. While the images in the Bechers’ photographs are imposing and iconic, Trautrimas’s shots in “South and West” are more anecdotal and fleeting, though they also capture views of architecture and landscapes that are slowly disappearing. “South and West” is an edition of 10 with a price of $300 each.”

For more information, visit www.photoeyeeditions.com. David Trautrimas is represented by Le Gallery in Toronto.