Untitled (Birth), 'Beneath the Roses', 2007 Archival pigment print, 58 1/2 x 89 1/2 in White Cube

The title of Gregory Crewdson’s current body of work, Beneath the Roses, effectively insinuates what is going on below the surface of his photographs. Currently showing at the White Cube Mason’s Yard, the American photographer captures various scenes and landscapes of a small town in upstate Massachusetts.

His settings and backgrounds overpower the subjects in the foreground underlining the monumental force of nature in comparison to humanity. His subjects appear to be clued in to this notion and have resigned themselves to their fate.

Mystic quality compared to his earlier work, sublime beams of light highlight the protagonists in his photographs whilst the remainder of the photograph is dimly lit and/or shrouded in fog. The loneliness of his figures combined with the familiarity of his depiction of suburban USA are comparable to the paintings of Edward Hopper, both emanating a nostalgia for locations that are at once foreign and familiar.

Characters are deep in thought, but this is not merely contemplation, they are noticeably troubled. Despite the object capturing their gaze, their mind is elsewhere to such an extent that in The Falls a melancholic woman is staring off into space while having sex. Crewdson’s settings are so powerful that characters emotions are evident by the implication of their situations. For example, 'The Father' in which a woman with her back to the foreground standing at her kitchen counter whilst her father is watching television in the foreground encapsulates the essence of sadness not merely because of her body language but by the tone set by her surroundings.

Crewdson’s tackles subjects that range from issues of femininity, such as the ironic depiction of a naked woman seen through the mirror of a run down motel room in 'The Debutant', old age, birth, poverty, adolescence, suburban ambiguity in photographs such as, 'The Madison', where the function of the building amidst its residential street is unclear and motion, as in 'Brief Encounter' where it appears that the old car turning onto the newly snow driven street will start moving once the traffic lights turn green.

In his depiction of every day life in America, Crewdson embodies a disconnection with reality in an almost supernatural way, penetrating mundane appearances on the surface to expose what lies beneath.