Tod Seelie

ARTIST STATEMENT:

The photographs from Of Quiet are about a home. Home for me has always been a very important concept, and often times a difficult one to pin down. When I was twelve my parents got divorced and I began switching custody and “homes” every week. For a while my father lived in the attic in his sister's house, and so home became my fold-out bed and the corner where I kept my legos. At the same time I tried very hard to make a connection to the place, with its beige carpeting, scratchy towels, and a backyard that was mostly a tree-covered hill ending at a fence on a major road. As my father slowly made the transition into a more permanent residence, the turbulence of growing up began to replace the family troubles. Finding no stability or comfort in the actual houses I was supposed to think of as home, and having no real base of friends in my school or social life, I came to see common, everyday places as home: the empty parking lot in front of the always empty auto repair shop, the sunny spot of grass on the east side of a highway overpass, or the road along the railroad tracks with a wide berm that was always full of broken glass.

My affinity for these types of oft-overlooked locations eventually manifested itself as a constant and mildly obsessive subject of my photography.

BIO:

Tod Seelie has photographed in fifteen countries on five different continents. His work has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, The NY Times, New York Magazine, Spin, Marie Claire, Jane, Vice, i-D, Paper, XXL, Art Forum, Art In America, Flash Art, Parade Magazine, Time Out NY, Adbusters, Death + Taxes, and Hamburger Eyes among others.

Select clients include Jagjaguwar Records, Secretly Canadian Records, Flavorpill, Workman Publishing, and fashion labels Rogan, Loomstate, and Anon Optics.

Tod has exhibited work in New York, Berlin, Tokyo, Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Cleveland, Miami and at Mass MoCA. His work has also appeared in various photography books, such as The Vice Photo Book, Street World, Backyard Shakedown and Hijacked.