Intuition plays a central role in this series (“Subconscious City”). These images are all found moments that have passed in front of my lens, unplanned yet deliberate and sought out. For the past two years I have stalked the city capturing the interplay of light, shadow and the anonymous, the complex fusion of commerce, alienation, association, desolation, anxiety and vulnerability all performing effortlessly in perfect synchronicity. My obsession has been to capture this in a single moment, layered yet unmanipulated, creating a collage made from reality rather than disparate elements.

This work is my narrative on urban life, a place that inhabits the subconscious. These photographs were created out of the brief moments when worlds collide, objects are at once inside and out, existing on surfaces together, unaware of each other, alliances and contradictions that are constructed and destroyed yet remain as a form on my canvas. These layers are the substrate of memories. My city exists, is real, yet is unknown, residing somewhere in the marrow to rise again at another time, another place and inform us of where we have been, life and existence.

Jeffrey Aaronson
August 2003