(b.1978)
Chris Mottalini (b. 1978) grew up in Buffalo, New York and has been living in New York City since 2000. He graduated with a B.S. in journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder (2000) and also attended Uppsala University in Sweden. Mottalini’s architecturally themed photographs have been international exhibited and widely published. His book, After You Left, They Took it Apart, which was published in 2013, was reviewed favorably in the LA Times. The artist made the following statement about his series, The Mistake by the Lake (2011).
The Mistake by the Lake is a photographic record of the assortment of school bus stop shelters scattered across the greater-Buffalo, New York landscape. Local parents build these structures in order to protect their children from the notoriously brutal Buffalo winters. Though the shelters are created for a specific need, over time that need diminishes and these curious examples of amateur architecture are left to blend into their surroundings. They remain as reminders of ingenuity and past necessity.
The heart of this project is the documentation of the architectural products of human concern and emotion, with the classic American city of Buffalo as the protagonist.