Colton Rothwell

In this series, titled Pearl Road, I draw upon memory to examine my relationship with the cultural and physical landscapes of my youth. I was raised in a town of 700 in Idaho and felt like an outsider after acknowledging I was gay in my early adolescence.

During these formative teenage years, I was faced with a choice: to conform to the traditional masculine values of the Western United States – defined by extraction and violence – or to create my own sense of belonging. It is through this struggle that my relationship with the idea of place emerges and I question the persistence of the mythological West. The landscape provided both solitude and escape when I was with lovers, but also heightened our sense of exposure and vulnerability. This tension between ecstasy and fear is what shaped my image-making during this project.

Inspired by the structure of post-documentary approaches by photographers in the 2000s and the impulses and aesthetics of New Topographics photographers working in the 1970’s, my project uses personal narrative to resurrect and reimagine these histories.

This work began at the age of 19 after coming out the year before. Years later, I now see that the work not only explores charged memories but is also an exercise in self-discovery through looking. In this poetic form, the images depart from ideas of ‘photographic truth’, capturing the ambiguity of memory and experience. This approach best expresses my ongoing relationship with the landscapes of my youth – unfixed, complicated, and ever-evolving. 

The series is 55 photographs in its entirety, of which I have shared a selection here on my website. I am hoping to publish the work as a photo book one day :)