Cory Maben
Artist Statement
I am Cory Maben, a photographer based out of Newberg, Oregon. The group of images I am presenting were created in the summer of 2023 in Newberg. I have been doing photography for about two years.
What appeals to me about photography is the way real world places, objects and people can be elevated into something more than what they simply are. Photography transforms the mundane into symbolic expressions that hint at the truth of the human experience. Photographing at night helps move these places out of the normal, waking world and into a liminal space. This frees the buildings from their normal context and allows them to become something more than their utility in our daily interactions with them. By moving buildings out of their spacial environment it reveals the emotional context of these places and how they've changed across time. Buildings, like memories, tend to fade away into the darkness of the past without notice. As a photographer this set of images was a way to stop and take notice of what is here now, and what is no longer here, the places that now only exist in memories.
Photography is an expression of the experiences of a photographer and where bodies of work constitute an ever changing self-portrait. I drew my inspiration for this series from a sense that the way we interact with physical spaces and with other people has changed. A persistent feeling of deterioration in belonging and community shaped the way I shot and edited these photos. What keeps me going is a sense of reaching out. That I am leaving an emotional record of my life that will perhaps resonate at some point with someone else, to form a connection across time and space with others.
Cory Maben | Newberg, OR
Purchase Available Work
Quisque iaculis facilisis lacinia. Mauris euismod pellentesque tellus sit amet mollis.