Near Oklahoma, exists the city of Wichita Falls, Texas. The glory days of Wichita Falls are but a distant memory. Downtown buildings blue and gold have long been empty. Desolate suburban streets lead to unrealized subdivisions. The poor live on the margins while the rich can leave town. Every community has its positives and negatives. Residents here enjoy a simpler life. Housing is dirt cheap and parking is never a problem.
No majestic mountains, crystal clear rivers or historic infrastructure to photograph here. Jesús Garza is forced to focus his lens on the more mundane. Issues of isolation, abandonment and loss are examined in his new work. Garza photographs decaying infrastructure and the endless landscape. They are embedded with symbols of the ordinary.
Locals brag about the Texoma landscape. It lays flat at the Southern edge of the great American prairie. Garza often traveled to the edge to see what has been built or fallen. On the margins of Wichita Falls are extensive fields of cotton, grass, oil and gas. The red soil obscures the essential fuels that drive the local economy. While taking these photographs, Garza found solace in interpreting the landscape, simply. Typical of many photographers he enjoyed revisiting and reexamining past adventures. Possibly seeing more the next time around.
Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston have grown exponentially over the past decades while Wichita Falls seems the worse for wear. There is no rush to live here, now. The area has become a refuge for those with few options. This new book project is dedicated to those hardy souls who make this wind-swept corner of Tornado Alley their home. This project offers eloquent visual testimony of their tenacity. Their future tied to this dusty patch of Texas.
