Christoph Schreiber’s deadpan photographs explore the subtle ways in
which man has affected the natural world.  Using digital techniques,
Schreiber reconfigures his photographed scenes through the removal,
addition or transformation of details until only a handful of essential elements
remain. His pared-down landscapes depict environments that are sym-
metrical and orderly, yet oddly off kilter. 

By altering everyday settings in small, almost imperceptible ways, Schreiber
creates an anxiety in the viewer, who experiences a reality somewhat amiss. 
Often monolithic man-made forms, such as shipping containers, warehouses,
and apartment buildings, are plunked down on a similarly stark landscape
emphasizing their simultaneously familiar and foreign character.  In other
photographs Schreiber depicts a strange grove of trees coming through the
mist, mysterious lights sparkling at the foot of a mountain, and an abstract
blur of a truck passing through the countryside. In each of these images the
landscape is anonymous, but recognizable.

In his photographs, Schreiber captures both the destruction and the beauty
of the industrial world’s intrusions into nature.  The result is at once humorous
and devastating.  The viewer, like the depicted structures, is isolated.  Both
are situated somewhat uncomfortably in their landscape, reflecting the essence
of the human condition. Schreiber’s images are proof of the many scenic details
we unconsciously absorb day in and day out, and therefore come to expect in
the photography of everyday life.  As he subtly composes his landscapes,
Schreiber forces us to question what we assume about our environments.
These assumptions not only result from how we change our world, but also
from our changing perceptions of the world.

Sarah Natkins, text for the exhibiton at the James Nicholson Gallery, 2004