The history of photographers capturing the West is as storied as the mythos of manifest destiny. Elise Rasmussen steps knowingly into this lineage and subtly pushes the contemporary momentum of turning towards the sculptural, beginning to break photography’s physical confines. In Montana (2024)—she fractures the landscape before asymmetrically piecing it back together, distorting, remapping, and pushing beyond the boundaries of the original fixed frame. Water exposure dissolves the traces of trees, emulating the fires that have become commonplace in the region. The West isn’t just captured; it burns. Ultimately, the attraction in the beautiful is what is left and will be lost.