Sam King interviews Joseph Noderer on the occasion of Noderer’s exhibition Horse Hill Waugh and Other Views at Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, on view through August 13, 2016.

Noderer remarks: “Pennsylvania has a lot of trees and underbrush, really tangly. One winter afternoon I saw a hill covered with bare trees that was bathed in orange sunlight, and it looked like the hill was covered in glowing orange hair. Ever since then I’ve been enamored of light interacting with live or dormant vegetation and hair. Since I think of the portraits as personifications of this region, it made sense to amplify that connection between hair and foliage. In addition to the light/hair/foliage connection, I soon started to think of light as a force that can both illuminate and obscure/deform something…I think this is in line with the new, less romanticized view I’ve gained of home…at times it’s an unforgiving light shed upon both the beautiful and ugly aspects of my current reality.”