Lot Lizards bw

Andrew Kuykendall – Lot Lizards

In Lot Lizards, Kuykendall presents an absurd roadside vision: oversized, cartoonish dinosaurs—remnants of a kitsch Americana dream—standing idle in a deserted parking lot. Shot in black and white, the image strips the scene of its carnival colour, reducing it instead to a quiet play of greys, forms, and shadows.

The effect is uncanny: amusement-park fantasy turned fossilised spectacle, caught in the stark tones of documentary photography. One cannot help but think of Walker Evans, who elevated the everyday and the vernacular into images of strange, enduring poetry. Kuykendall’s photograph operates in that same lineage—finding depth and melancholy in what at first appears absurd.

Here, the dinosaurs are no longer entertainment but monuments to time’s passage, stranded in asphalt silence. Lot Lizardsis both humorous and haunting, an image where American spectacle fades into memory, leaving only the bones of imagination behind.