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M+B is pleased to present the debut exhibition of 21-year-old photographer Mike Brodie. Recently a major cover feature in Look Look magazine, the Pensacola, Florida native has documented his friends and companions while traveling along the American railways for the last three years. In true Kerouac fashion, his own "On the Road" serves as a photo narrative of those he meets and stays with along the way.
The subject and composition unexpectedly reveal the natural harmony within each image. Citing Mary Ellen Mark as a source of inspiration, Brodie integrates a rawness and authenticity within each photograph, revealing the beauty and poetry of his sitters and locales. Artists, poets, families, train-hoppers, farmers and outsiders tell their stories in a single frame. Brodie's planned, yet candid, images capture the purity and the intensity of each moment, all further enhanced by his use of a Polaroid camera.
Brodie explains it his way . . .
Maybe I've just become obsessed with dirty cloth & dull rags, objects that have been touched by a million different hands then set back down--right there--just for me. Things that are made by chance or found on the side of a road, rather than bought or sold. What's a story anyways? Why do people tell them?
My first memory was when I was a year old. Imagine that. Lyin' by a river bed, Arizona is hot in the summer, and even worse when you have an earache. One-year-old with no pants on, screaming and crying like it would help or something, my face bright RED. The blanket I was lying on, made of prickly pear green wool. If that cloth was still around, it would tell you a story. But its long gone, underground somewhere, tired.
I've been shittin' and pissin' for 20 years since that day. Most of the time I miss, but I "make photos" now, valued by some. Who are these people? One of my favorites is still that one my mom took, my dad cuttin' into a turkey like a man--in prison since, my grandma laughin' drunk in the foreground--dead now. I still have that one. As for why, who knows? This is where I am and what I'm doing. Everyone I've ever met is responsible for it, and those eyes of theirs--never blank--always tryin' to focus right there on the pupil. It's always difficult to get a good look at both of 'em. Go ahead and try. You'll just end up starin' right at the bridge of the nose.
The photos. I want people to see 'em just as you'd want to tell someone a good story. Nobody enjoys boredom. And when I'm good and dead, maybe my lungs'll still be around, with some words beneath. Everything comes as a surprise--thank GOD.
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