Immediate Response
Farm by Tim Portlock evokes an immediate sense of sadness and despair. I was drawn to the painting on the side of the building in the foreground as well as the yard surrounding the building. The painting humanizes the scene and makes it clear to the audience that this was once a prosperous land where happy and healthy people lived and worked. The trash in the yard consists of tires, couches, and an old car and there stray animals wandering the streets. This shows that these buildings are now uninhabitable and the owners have been forced out, leaving their old lives behind.
Objective Description
Tim Portlock’s Farm consists of an abandoned house and what is now a junkyard surrounding the house in the foreground. There is a mural on the left side of the home that depicts two African American farmers, a man and a woman, carrying a basket of colorful fruits and vegetables while standing within prosperous farmland. In the junkyard, an old couch, tires, empty boxes, an old car, and stray animals can be seen. Beyond the foreground is a series of other abandoned buildings that appear to be other homes and office buildings. The sky is gray-blue and cloudy with only small rays of light breaking through the clouds.
Technical Decisions
There are multiple aspects of the piece that demonstrate the technical decisions that went into this piece as well as the entire collection of work entitled “Here.” First, the trash and destruction that you see in Farm appear to be random but that is no accident. When the destruction that Portlock is displaying occurs naturally, tires will not be left in a junkyard lying perfectly flat next to each other and instead will likely be spread across the yard and stacked against other objects as in Portlock’s work. Additionally, while this is a strong piece of art on its own, it is presented as one of a series of six pieces all which display unfortunately common scenes of destruction. When you look at the pieces together, it becomes clear to the audience that Portlock is portraying a more widespread issue of abandonment and destruction which amplifies the emotions that the work evokes.
The Work in the World
This piece speaks to the subject of the industrialization and de-industrialization that occurred in the United States. The buildings in the image appear to be a mixture of factories, office buildings, and homes. This suggests that during the age of industrialization, people flocked to the land in search of jobs however once deindustrialization began, that factory industry was not the only industry harmed. Individuals lost their jobs and were forced to leave town leading to rampant abandonment and destruction issues in cities. The image of the African Americans on the side of the home touches on the issues of race and economic status, suggesting that many of the individuals who previously lived in such cities and were forced to leave their homes were those of color.
The Story it Tells
The title of the work, Farm, clearly tells the story behind the piece. Prior to the age of industrialization much of our country was composed of farmland where fruits and vegetables would grow. During the industrialization era, there was still growth on the land but instead it was the growth of factories, jobs, homes, etc. Once de-industrialization began, the vegetation that once existed on the farmland began to regrow but now instead of finding vegetables on the land, there is growth of trash which has been a growing problem within the United States. This piece is showing how much destruction we are causing to our land and to the people who once lived there.