[ad_1]
When this roadside sign caught Jane Hilton’s eye in Dayton, Nevada, back in 2002 she decided to capture the image as an exemplar of the deadpan humour of the sagebrush state. “Little did I know how pertinent it would feel almost two decades later, after two months of lockdown,” she says. “It’s all about the timing, isn’t it?”
Hilton made her name documenting US culture, in particular the American west, over the past 20 years. At the time she took this photograph she was directing a documentary series for BBC Three called Love for Sale about sex workers in Nevada, the only American state where prostitution is legal.
“I lived for a year in two brothels near Dayton and the producer and I used to go into the town for some light relief in the evenings and have the most delicious steak dinners at the Old Union hotel. Dayton is quite magical. It’s like an old wild west town on the cusp of the desert,” Hilton says.
Part of the town’s draw is that it was the location for John Huston’s The Misfits, the 1961 drama that proved to be the last ever film appearance of its stars, Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. “I totally get why The Misfits was shot there. The place feels so evocative of the Hollywood movies I grew up watching,” she says.
On Hilton’s first visit to Nevada two decades ago for a commercial shoot in Las Vegas, she witnessed the “wedding frenzy” that occurs every Valentine’s Day in Sin City. “All the limos and brides and grooms all over town, it was wild,” she recalls. Vegas wedding culture became the subject of her first big photographic project.
Other Nevada-inspired monographs have explored the lifestyle of the 21st-century cowboy and American gun culture. What draws her to this sparsely populated place time and again? “I find it very good for the soul – I like the space and the way it’s all desert, 180-degree views and always mountains in the background. I like the climate and the colours and I love, love, love the light.”
For further details on Coming Soon Nothing or other works by Jane Hilton contact Eleven Fine Art; elevenfineart.com
[ad_2]
READ SOURCE
