Stranger in a Van is an ongoing series that embodies the photographer as an isolated persona, one whose uneasy communication with the surrounding environment brings about a potential for alienation. Here, the relationship between camera and subject provides a reflection for the many ways we connect, or fail to connect, with our immediate surroundings, the natural world, and each other, in a technological society that can seem increasingly abstract and detached. The camera's intimacy acts as a precursor to flattening and disconnect, a living moment transformed into an object. These photographs also serve as fragments within a larger personal narrative, an archive that documents one person's struggle with isolation, depression, and attempts to construct cohesion and meaning throughout shifting and unstable environments.
Sarah Gill is an American Artist currently living and working in Oregon. She received a BFA from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from the University of Arizona. As her work traverses multiple physical and emotional spaces, it also addresses a struggle to make lasting connections in new and sometimes unreceptive landscapes.