Gazing across the remote eastern shoreline of the Delmarva Peninsula and the vast prairie regions of the Great Plains, we see abandoned homes as monuments on an acute horizon line that links these narratives together. The images in Marcin’s A House Apart and Out West series give a distinct sense of despair and defiance. Without the presence of their former or current residents, the solitary structures become personified by their remoteness in space. The composition and perspective of each photograph offers the viewer an objectivity to consider the unexpected beauty and history present in such quiet moments.

Ben Marcin is a self-taught photographer living and working in Baltimore, MD. He has exhibited in prominent spaces both nationally and internationally, including the Baltimore Museum of Art (Baltimore, MD), Delaware Art Museum (Wilmington, DE), New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT), Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA), the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO), the Photographic Resource Center (Boston, MA), the Houston Center for Photography (Houston, TX), the Photo Center NW (Seattle, WA), PDNB Gallery (Dallas, TX), and Johalla Projects (Chicago, IL). His work is included in the the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, New Britain Museum of American Art, and Le Musée de la Photographie Belgium. Marcin’s photographic essays have received significant press coverage from The Washington Post, The Paris Review, Slate, Hyperallergic, and Wired Magazine, among others.