The Psychosis of American Suburbs by Todd Hido and Miles Aldridge

A new exhibition, This Side of Paradise: Narrative, Cinema and Suburbia in the Work of Miles Aldridge and Todd Hido, presents 20 large-scale color photographs demonstrating how Aldridge and Hido investigate the concept of suburbia.

The exhibition will be on view at Huxley-Parlour Gallery in London from November 15–December 15, 2018.

Though the styles of these influential artists differ, both are recognized for their distinctive cinematic color palettes, lighting and compositions, and the suggestion of narrative possibilities beyond the edge of the frame. “Whereas Hido presents a shadowy, empty, exterior suburban world, Aldridge presents the viewer with brightly lit, garish interiors, focusing on the imagined lives of the women who inhabit them,” writes the gallery in a statement.

Hido’s photographs in This Side of Paradise are from his ongoing “Houses at Night” series, which depicts isolated suburban homes in America, photographed at night, replete with voyeuristic undertones and implied narrative. Hido’s work is concerned with themes of urban isolation and interior lives. His compositions are often bereft of human presence, although a singular lit window or an empty car become signifiers of stories left untold.

The depictions of isolated women in highly-stylised, constructed interiors in the portraits by Aldridge suggest intimate dramas in these stifling domestic settings. His fastidiously constructed tableaus are charged with psychological tension and narrative ambiguity.

“Both Miles Aldridge and Todd Hido look to subvert the traditional American suburban fantasy, with the unsettling undercurrents woven through their work,” states Huxley-Parlour.

This Side of Paradise
Narrative, Cinema and Suburbia in the Work of Miles Aldridge and Todd Hido
Huxley-Parlour Gallery
November 15–December 15, 2018