David Graham is one of those gifted photographers we love to classify as an artist who documents the American roadside, traveling across the country in search of the sublime. With three books chronicling his excursions throughout the United States, it is easy to see how Graham's work transcends this simplistic categorization. His investment in our consumption is unrelenting, keenly aware of the contradictions that litter the back roads and highways. Through humor, he shows us how we express our individuality: a giant inflatable pumpkin advertising its wares sits in a rural town in California; a burger-shaped restaurants beckons the hungry along a street in Los Angeles; a milk truck-looking mobile roadside church awaits its followers in Galup; a stature of Lenin invites patrons to enter a restaurant along lover's lane in Dallas.

Graham is acutely aware of how we use advertising as ornamentation, as town after town reveals the chaotic order of signage. From Bath, Maine to Burbank, California, David Graham show us the complexities that exist within America. As Robert Venturi wrote in his introduction in Taking Liberties, "... there is the element of juxtaposition within Graham's art interpreting and celebrating the everyday American experience involving ranges of mess." It is this mess which Graham uncovers, helping us see ourselves with a clarity that brings a smile to all who look at his work.