Your name
Jason Pevey
Place of birth
Norfolk, USA
Place where you live now
Seattle, USA
3 words to describe you
Quiet, contemplative, light-hearted
Why do you take pictures?
It’s an unchecked compulsion; an addiction. Despite my best efforts to quit for over 10 years, I still find myself picking up the camera and squashing light into a flat rectangle.
Where do you get your inspiration?
English translations of Taoist classics, poetry, movement in the outdoors.
Who are your influences?
John Gossage, Philip Perkis, Masahisa Fukase, Jane Hirshfield, Chuang Tzu
What determines the subject matter you choose?
Lately I’ve focused on things overlooked, forgotten, or deemed worthless in my urban environment. Trash, alleyways, broken infrastructure, fences, graffiti. The natural world is a constant source of relief and wonder to me, but trying to find beauty in detritus and concrete is much more challenging.
What impact would you like your art to have?
Impact is a colonial desire. Art making is like breathing or drinking water.
What artwork do you never get bored with?
Art that is dark and hopeful, authentic, humble. Not overwrought or hyper-conceptual.
Is there anything you want to add?
I hope anyone that reads this can find ambition and fulfillment outside of a capitalist framework.

Symbol and Ritual
Project statement

Land is the primary source of all myth, symbol and culture.
To look deeply at the land is to see a reflection of all meaning, spirituality, behavior, and structure humanity has created throughout history.
From the earliest nomadic tribes to settled agrarian cultures, the land and the rhythmic shifts of the cosmos have been a guiding force in developing elaborate rituals of communication within our species and towards the unknowable force of a transcendent ‘Other’.

These photographs are an archaeological search for evidence of primitive symbol and ritual in the present, organizations of material and form from the land in an attempt to divine meaning. Divorced from a practitioner, these arrangements collapse time, observing symbols that feel ancient and magical. They are suggestions of a potential future beyond industrial collapse.

jason pevey
@jason.pevey