Untitled (model home, connected to garage) c. 1950

This photograph of a model home connected to a garage, by Robert Burian, plays with light and shadow in ways that feel like a reversal, a negative space demanding our attention. The image is built upon the texture of light, or rather, the absence of it. The stark contrast renders familiar forms alien, like a ghostly apparition of suburban life. Look at the sky, a turbulent mass of dark clouds against the bright tree - it's a total inversion. It makes me think of dreams, where ordinary objects take on a strange, foreboding quality. The dark and light becomes more than just representation; it's a feeling, an emotion. The composition is simple, a classic suburban house, but this is so far from a simple photograph. It reminds me a little of Diane Arbus, in its unflinching gaze. The light, the composition, everything in this piece says something about the ongoing conversation of art - where ambiguity and interpretation triumph.