Within this collection I am looking into the ‘American Dream’ and its unquestioning belief and hope; soullessly based upon the unfulfilled promise of adverts and illusions. When you grow up in America you are imbued from the earliest age with the understanding that America is the richest and most powerful nation on earth because God likes ‘them’ the best; that counties just don’t come any better. They are told that with a little good old fashioned hard work and a bit of luck things can be just as presented on TV.

However, this illusion is not as convincing to a growing percentage of people who know their escape from bitter reality seems impossible. Still, there are those who try for a better way of life, believing that they can escape the mind-numbing dreary uniformity of mid America; blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes, poverty and television, that ultimately they will escape to a place where there must be more to life than the vast ground locked states which offer nothing of the ‘Promised Land’ that their President and cooperate advertising guarantees to deliver. Unfortunately for some, this journey of discovery and fulfillment does not always have a happy, or even an acceptable end.

'Missing: series 2' follows on with this notion of wanderlust and escape, of a road trip to paradise, of how those seeking a better life who are easily lead by the promises and stories of another; despite their desire not to be taken in and absorbed by them. Existing too in this world is the psychotic; also taken in by the myth that the importance of possessions and the acquisition of things are necessary. However, in this case it is the ultimate possession - that of another human being which becomes the desirable object. ‘Since this girl represents not a person, but an image, or something desirable, the last thing we would expect him to want, would be to personalize this person.’ S. Michaud (The Only Living Witness, 1983).

One Story: A handsome man walked up to Carol Da Ronch by the Cyclone ride in Coney Island. It was damp November evening in 1974 and the attractive 17 year old was gazing wide eyed at the twinkling and blurring lights of the funfair when the man approached and introduced himself.

Artist's note:
The context here is fairly self-explanatory. A series of still images of ‘normal’ life in America at an unspecified time, it could be the 1950s, it could be sometime in the future.

There is a slight aspirational quality to the house and area etc. but behind the closed doors, shadows in the forest, lyrics to a popular easy listening song or the words of DJ on a bible radio station, there is an element of foreboding.

These places, these sights, these sounds… what is not seen but felt only when it is too late for our killer’s victims.

As in the previous missing series the background colours reflect the environment where the incidents take place - but on this occasion they also echo manmade structures as well as natural ones, advertising hoardings, gate posts, concrete storage units etc.