Parts

8 of 18 in portfolio.


One of the most striking features of The Slabs is the presence of hundreds of vehicles that have met their end in the brutal desert climate. These machines, once in motion, now rest as rusted, discoloured, dented, and battered relics—testaments to a modern, industrialized society that discards its transportation in the most vengeful of ways. Dumped, abandoned, and left to decay, they evoke the haunting imagery of a war zone.

The Slabs serve as a graveyard for all manner of vehicles—trucks, motorcycles, buses, trailers—virtually anything with two or four wheels. Yet, ironically, they’re not entirely dead. Far from it. These forsaken machines become not just props, but potential starting points for artistic installations. A simple walk through The Slabs reveals how local artists repurpose them with striking imagination and creativity.

A splinter portfolio from my primary project, Desert Pieces, this series—Parts—continues to explore the connections between the slabbers and their surreal surroundings. The title can be taken quite literally: it's rare to find a vehicle here that's still intact. Many of the compositions in the series make use of shattered windows, employing the visual technique of “framing within a frame” to further emphasize fragmentation—both physical and symbolic.