Post-production jiggery-pokery has been employed for years now to touch up, enhance and generally bend reality to the photographer’s will, but rather than use such processing for a sneaky cheat, Garrett Pruter has taken outright liberties with it to very clever, attractive and at times eerie ends.

In his collage collection Interiors, Pruter utilises found, nostalgic photographic negatives from the 20th Century, subjecting them to ‘subtractive’ alterations ranging from cutting and bleaching to near total disintegration before reassembly as a comment on ephemerality and the destructive nature of time. The scenes are exclusively domestic in nature, but Pruter’s messing about, especially in his manipulation of the images to bring stark colour into washed out or dark scenes, give some of the finished works a marvellously striking quality, while others remain rather drab and sad, the absence of their subjects increasing the melancholy.

The Charles Bank Gallery on Bowery, New York City, will host these particular Interiors until May 26.

Garrett Pruter 1987 –
Arrangement I, 2013
collage 30 x 40 in

Garrett Pruter 1987 –
Interior V (bouquet), 2013
collage 18 x 24 in

Garrett Pruter 1987 –
Interior IV (pot), 2013
collage
24 x 18 in,
61 x 45.7 cm

Garrett Pruter 1987 –
Arrangement II, 2013
collage with Mylar

Garrett Pruter 1987 –
Interior III (flower), 2013
collage
18 x 24 in,
45.7 x 61 cm

Garrett Pruter 1987 –
Wayne, 2013
collage with Mylar
18 x 24 in

Garrett Pruter 1987 –
Interior I, 2013
collage
18 x 24 in,
45.7 x 61 cm