Buck Ellison deploys the visual languages of ruling-class portraiture and stock photography to produce dense, narratively suggestive images of what he calls “hidden, obscured, or overlooked aspects of American life.” In meticulously constructed, intensely researched photos of scenes from real histories of white wealth (as in his recent series of moments from the biography of the fascistic DeVos/ Prince family), Ellison plays with the oft-disavowed fabulism of both his medium and his subjects’ worlds.

Here, Ellison shares some of his collage-like preparatory practice, the inspiration he finds in Deutsche Bank brochures, and reveals his art as an extension of a childhood interest in international espionage.