By Veritie Howard

What struck me most about Through the Static and Distance as I surveyed its sprawling placement throughout the upper levels of the Maine Jewish Museum was not necessarily the content—plenty of artists have sought to capture various American landscapes as it presents itself—but the questions that the series raised and the story captured within.

Harbert's images of New Mexico highlight not only places now void of use and meaning, but call upon the ghosts of human influence on the landscape. From abandoned playgrounds to solitary telephone poles and bullet-riddled billboards, he presents to us a world that the American Dream has left, quite literally, in the dust. There is a communion with the natural world as well as an ever present need for control over it—scrublands and livestock intertwine with the leftover traces of unknown lives. 

The dreaminess of the series can best be attested to the method by which it was created: vintage Diana cameras are known to produce images of a hazy or ‘lower’ quality, of which one is never certain until the roll is developed. And photos such as these certainly would not have the same effect were they taken and printed in color—the darkness of night time scenes and silhouetted structures are made all the more mysterious, enticing, and in some instances, a surreal reminder of the way we have imposed ourselves on places not designed to sustain us. What happens when we cultivate a landscape and then leave it behind? Are there simply places that humanity and the structures we create were not meant to inhabit? Why do these structures and items no longer hold meaning or utility? What meaning were they assigned in the first place, and by whom? All this and more Harbet seeks to answer in his depictions of this isolated world.

The pieces that became favorites of mine after several rounds of the space, staring at images tucked between the glowing warm light that fell through the stained glass windows, I chose not because I believed them to be good (though they were regardless), but because I found in them fragments of my own experiences of the world. Number 21, Untitled (tree, fence) (2019) for example, is one of the more simple compositions within the series—a simple outdoor scene with a modified wooden fence. But my love for this particular photo is found more so in the details: it is in the horizontal planks that replace a broken section towards the left; in the space allotted for the tree stump in the center, the pickets perfectly cut to blend unprocessed nature with its counterpart. It is evidence of an existence, of someone’s time and care. In contrast, number 4: Untitled (shot-up sign) (2020) and its accompanying Found Objects (number 5 in the series) are again evidence of one’s existence and history, but it is a history that is marked less by tenderness and more by violence. Photos 19 and 20 (Untitled (cow, darkness) and Untitled (trailer, dusk) (2019)), shown together, again seem to bring forth another story of their own—they ask you to look closer and wonder just what lies beyond the images; what else could be in the darkened field, what goes on inside the trailer after the sun goes down. In this way, Tonee Harbert has created a beautiful yet mystifying miniature of the West in all its decaying and overgrown glory.