Publisher's Description
Eleven years in the making and compiling more than 30 years of material, Ed
Templeton’s scrapbook of his upbringing in suburban Orange County California
is a much-anticipated book. Its photographs give a sun-drenched glimpse of
what it might be like to be young and alive in the “suburban domestic incubator”
of Orange County, conveyed in the idiom of Nan Goldin or Larry Clark (and
with a sharp eye for the streets that recalls Garry Winogrand or Eugene
Richards). For like his groundbreaking predecessors, Templeton is always a participant
in the scenes he shoots. From the Alleged Press series curated by Aaron
Rose, Deformer interweaves disciplinary letters from Templeton’s grandfather
and religious notes from his mother with sketches, snapshots, telling images
and the occasional brutal tale, laying out an unresolved narrative that plunges
readers headlong into Templeton’s chaotic youth and his reliance on art and
skateboarding to accommodate its stresses and joys.“ Skateboarding allowed
me to travel the world, and that showed me that where I live is totally messed
up,” he observes. “That perspective has fueled me and been a source for my
art.” Through photographs, stories and ephemera of all sorts from his youth
and teenage years, Templeton offers readers an intensely close and personal
look at an artist’s coming of age.
About the Limited
The boxed limited edition comes with a signed and numbered photograph by Ed Templeton.
Read Aaron Rothman's review of
Deformer in photo-eye Magazine.
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