My photographs are about place, culture, society, environment, and how
these concepts influence us as people. These photographs are a part of a larger
on going project currently titled American Byway. I am documenting the
transformation of the American roadside primarily traveling the back roads,
frontage roads, business routes, and older highways. By traversing these roads
primarily traveled by locals, there is the potential for insight to the individuals and the community that has shaped a region and created the character of a place. This environment is loaded with information and evidence from the past that is now layered with subtle indications about the future.
Rebecca Nolan grew up in a small rural community in southeastern
Wisconsin. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay and an MFA from the University of Oregon, Eugene. Since
heading back over the Rockies in 1995, Rebecca has lived on an Island in Lake
Michigan, the city of Chicago (twice), Lexington, Kentucky, St. Louis, Missouri,
and most recently Savannah, Georgia. She has been teaching at Savannah
College of Art and Design for five years. Prior to the move south she taught at
the University of Kentucky, Washington University-St. Louis, Webster University.
Influenced by her travels throughout America. Rebecca's work deals with the
ideas of place, culture, society, environment, and how these ideas influence the
people that create them. The photographs often address the relationship society, a community, or an individual has with their environment. She is interested in how the individuals that make up a community shape an environment and how that community and the environment shapes the individual.