Charles LaBelle’s compound photographs are made up of thousands of images the artist has taken in cities worldwide, which he experiences both in intense detail and as a flood of impressions and chance encounters. In this work, he focused on three hotels in San Francisco and their surroundings. The source photographs incorporate ordinary objects of varying scale, such as buildings, Dumpsters, soda cans, and people, as well as extremely abstract elements, including shadows, pieces of pavement, and areas of color. Back in the studio, LaBelle cuts square-inch images from proof sheets and designs these large, intricate, poetic works that both depict the look and evoke the mood of each location.

Label from Looking Out and Looking In: A Selection of Contemporary Photography, January 19–June 9, 2013