Recent Terrains: Terraforming the American West (Creating the North American Landscape) - Tapa dura

"Her images are the documents of an observant but self-effacing bystander, combining a delicate feel for tonal contrasts and pleasing compositions with a cool objectivity... Brown has an uncanny ability to find elements of grace in unpromising surroundings." -- Cathy Curtis, Los Angeles Times, reviewing a previous edition or volume

"Recording those transitions between the unbuilt and the built, Brown has captured a series of alien and foreboding terrains that are stunningly beautiful in their stark austerity and esoteric geometries -- arid lands relentlessly scoured, scraped, modeled, and engineered in preparation for domestication. Even more unnerving are her photographs of the eventual consequences of those geometries -- the planned, repetitive, sterile, and seemingly endless tracts of suburban homes stretching to the horizon's haze, the expanse of the American dream taken to its end. One may wistfully cherish those operatic vistas of pristine wilderness photographed by the likes of Ansel Adams; Laurie Brown shows us what really exists just beyond the Half Dome." -- Robert A. Sobieszek, Curator of Photography & Deputy Director of Strategic Artistic Initiatives, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, reviewing a previous edition or volume

"All cities are like Troy in their potential to mingle tragedy in the commonplace, Homer knew. Brown reaches toward that knowledge without flinching or sentiment. Though ambivalent as her photographs must be, she shows us town being made that may claim someone's allegiance, answer their longing and persist in memory." -- D.J. Waldie, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Brown reveals the intermingling of history, culture and nature behind the area's efforts to provide housing on a wide scale. The resultant instant suburbias glow with an aura of newness and seem to be inhabited by a particular quiet." -- Doubletake

"Flipping through the pages, the story of the urbanization of the American West unfolds like a turn-of-the-century flip book -- the landscape literally and visually morphs like a sand painting." -- Deborah Picker, LA Weekly

"A collection of panoramic black and white photographs, Brown's exploration of evolving suburbia along the southwest Californian coast displays the movement of man-made lines versus the original landscape." -- Afterimage