“The mirage... Then, from far, far down - from the staircase of contaminated layers of compact light, near the ground struck by an intense heat full of tormented anger, and while the mirage's rarefied light rebounded, run through with denser layers - in the heart of those superimposed dazzlements, a sharp, suspended light chose to show an overturned semblance of happy dwellings, surrounded by gardens reflected in a lake of eager, gushing water, and at the top, under a clump of branching palm trees, bunches of yellow dates... The most attractive of illusions and the cruelest of disappointments.”
-Giuseppe Ungaretti
Hoping to escape her grief in a city constantly moving and ripe with distraction, my paternal Grandmother moved what remained of her immediate family to Las Vegas following the loss of my Grandfather in the Vietnam War. The relief was fleeting and the impact of the city and its moral code meant a tumultuous future for my family.
The Pyramid in the Desert reflects on my family history with the city of Las Vegas through stills from the Twilight Zone episode “Lonely” and images taken in and around the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The significance of this particular structure is it’s reference to the Egyptian pyramids built as tombs, as well as its ability to emphasize the architecture's connection with the desert landscape- a space whose openness often breeds self-reflection. There are ironies in the kinship of these structures and the associated iconography. In this postmodern architecture we find things seemingly historical and referential, yet that are only facade. Escapism accessed in a tangible mirage. The work reflects on the void of illusion and the confinement of loneliness in a place that dictates one not confront his or herself and live only in the present.