Lake Elster Series

Each photograph is a portrait of a Lake Elster resident, as recounted by unreliable narrator Wade Lagarde. Specific figures from his memory inhabit these scenes and can be traced throughout the series, from the brutal discovery of the lake by 17th century French fur-trappers and Jesuit priests (led by Henri Babeurre and Fr. Seneschal Brulotte), and the ensuing conflict with native Abenaki Indians, through Alan Welter’s time in his basement workshop and adhesives factory in 1961, on to more contemporary times with the Wolframs and the introduction of Maeve Devlin, who recently happened upon the lake.

While researching Alan, Wade uncovers writing in Alan’s hand about a coworker named Laszlo Gorov. It is unclear whether Gorov, a dwarf Romanian boxer, actually assisted the elderly man in the factory, or was just a hallucination born of the adhesive fumes.

Significant objects stand as attributes of characters who are often absent from view. Stage-like, fabricated elements act as a rupture, heightening the subjective nature of the narrative. The original stories embedded in the images, as remembered by Wade, get further distorted with each new read.