It was about 7 pm on a Tuesday night when I met with Jeremy Kidd in a small Coffee shop in Venice. I was running late and by the time I got there, he had nearly finished a chai latte and the remains of some edible rested on a nearby plate. I plopped my bag on the floor and apologized for my tardiness.

CateN: “I feel like it’s important that you know that I’ve never done this before.”

An inquisitive, slightly unsettled look comes over the artist’s face.

CN: Which just basically means that I am gonna ask a bunch of questions as they come to me...whatever, let’s just talk.

JeremyK: Yeah, ok.

I couldn’t have met Jeremy Kidd at a better time. For the master of visual reconstruction, Jeremy Kidd is feeling the results of some reconstruction on himself. When we arrived at his house, the front yard was full of debris, copper piping lined newly built walls, and rooms were cordoned off with plastic sheeting.

CN:You weren’t kidding....

We had briefly touched on the exhaustion Jeremy’s feeling these days, his house going under massive construction.

JK: Yeah.

CN: Is it similar to the process of creating your pieces? Is this like the 3 dimensional version?

JK: Well, yeah that’s interesting. But not really because in this case I have no idea what I’m doing. I have to have 15 people do it for me. But the design is mine.

I first saw Jeremy Kidd’s new work he self-titles “Fictional Realities” , on the small screen of my laptop...late night, after he had shown up at my own art opening. However, it wasn’t until we turned on a few work lights, and made our way past lumber and through plastic to his studio...that I really saw what it was he was doing. Between four and 8 feet in width, Kidd’s “Fictional Realities” are awe inspiring... like this ultimate “real” landscape. Each piece takes upwards of 3 months to create and it’s no wonder.

CN: What is the process that goes into creating each piece?

JK: I take between 60-100 photographs of a structure over several hours with long exposures and then it takes months to reassemble them.

CN: Do you know what the piece is going to be when you’re photographing or does that happen in the studio when all the images are laid out before you?

JK: Well I am initially struck by the dramatic features that a structure has and then it’s a matter of trying to solve structural problems for me.

CN: So you don’t have an emotional relationship to the work?

JK: No. Not in the work. I have a relationship to the place. And I am trying to capture that in my work.

CN: But I think others have an emotional relationship to the work. I know that I do for sure. It’s hard not to imagine that it’s a real landscape. Because your brain wants to be logical and say its impossible, but what you see tells you it’s absolutely real. It’s the realism that’s scary for me. Especially in this one piece.

JK: What piece do you find scary?

CN: The piece with all the columns and dark passageways...

JK: That’s interesting. The one structure I had premeditated a bit was the Chrysler building. Where I actually was given permission to be in top of another building in order to photograph. I was way up looking down and felt such vertigo. I wanted to convey that feeling in the final piece. I think I was successful.

CN: How would you feel if someone took your work and reconfigured it into something else?

JK: Umm, I don’t know. What would they do? Straighten it out?

We laugh...

CN: Yeah I don’t know...I think I just focus on the intricacy and it makes me want to mess with it even more.

JK: Look, I’m the obsessive one here.

Kidd takes the period of time in which we experience a structure first hand, and reapplies it to a two dimensional surface. His structures bend and grow out into branches from one another, and the attention to detail is obscene. Each wire, each line, each cloud, everything has a precise placement that allows one to imagine that there is a possibility of this being an exact replica. In a way, it is.

They are not replicas of the structure, but replicas of the experience of being there. Kidd has found a form in which to represent the way in which he experiences a place. His 360º photographs reconfigure to allow the viewer to see the way in which a structure commanded such awe from the viewer. MC Escher’s work has shown a similar manipulation of structure, however Kidd’s use of photography brings a sense of realism to these abstract landscapes.

Kidd is interested in man’s relationship to structure and space and his work has certainly shown an evolution of this subject. In the new work, it’s as if the structures have a life of their own....something beyond what man has created for the purpose of utility. Man’s relationship to space and the structures which take up space and the interiors they create, is a subject that Kidd is constantly grappling with. This new work is a turning point for Kidd. And for the viewer, each piece in the series “Fictional realities” allows the freedom to observe the passage of time as well as redefine how we feel about and how we look at architecture.

Kidd has yet to photograph a structure in Los Angeles. A resident of Venice for over 20 years...when asked why not LA Kidd is a bit evasive...

JK: I am actually working on a piece right now...vaguely.