Brendan George Ko is an interdisciplinary artist living between Maui, Hawai’i and Toronto, Canada and working primarily in photography, video, sound, installation, and oral tradition.
I spent my formative years living in a small town in New Mexico. I often tell people one of the following things about my time there: It's where I got my weird from, where I became an artist, and, more importantly, it's where the land first spoke to me.
I spent most of my time outside, especially on the countless road trips my family went on through the Four Corners (Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico). During those years I could sense the spirits of that land speaking to me and giving me comfort. I grew up with uncles and aunties telling me stories of skinwalkers, aliens, cars being chased by lights or giant humanoid wolves with red-glowing eyes, and I was told not to play outside in the boonies at night. There have been so many moments where I’ve felt a hundred eyes watching me in the woods, feeling something lurking beyond sight. Even the house I lived in was haunted, and I could hear its walls breathe and stir.
Recently, I returned to this landscape for the first time in 23 years to experience it as an adult. I wanted to see if it still felt haunted, if it was still full of the stories that gave the land its enchantment, and I wondered if those spirits would still speak to me.
That same awe and feeling of being spooked came back to me as I traveled through the Four Corners. This was the loneliest place I had ever lived in and yet, I felt so comfortable when I was alone, sitting in the dirt looking out to the sprawling desert hills. I wanted to capture it in a way that honored those childhood memories and also honored the spirits of the land that I can still sense.
