Nate Mathews

Ersatz is a photographic exploration about how architecture influences those who inhabit it. Architecture plays an important part in how people interact, where and whether they interact, and how they feel about the activity that happens in the space. People recognize when they do not like a space or if it is lacking something and shown in this work is the attempts to rectify the flaws in the design.

Ersatz: [er-zahts]: An artificial substance or article used to replace something natural or genuine; a substitute.

This work examines artificial features that are incorporated into publicly accessible spaces: commercial, corporate, and institutional, constructed environments in an attempt to mitigate or lessen the effect of structures that, while functional, are essentially cold flat featureless boxes. This collection seeks to draw the viewer's attention to the presence of these ersatz elements in modern architectural space.

All of these images depict elements added to the environment to simulate comfort to those people who pass through these spaces. Some are of a more physical or sensory kind, such as a place for people to sit or something to look at. However, most ersatz elements relate to the connection of humans to nature. The place to sit or thing to look at becomes a place to look at nature or a representation therein.

All images are available as 16 x 20", 24 x 30" and 40 x 50"  pigment prints made in editions of 20, 10 and 5, respectively, for $500 (small), $800 (medium) and $1500 (large).