Opie's America: in two new shows, photographer Catherine Opie provides a very personal take on the country today, examining her own family as well as whole cities.

Catherine Opie may be best known for her commanding portraits of subcultures ranging from hard-core leather dykes to towheaded Orange County, Calif., surfers, but the Los Angeles--based artist, 45, has been documenting another kind of identity--that of U.S. landscapes--for just as long. Two new shows offer viewers a look at both sides of Opie's photographic personality: New York City's Gladstone Gallery displays her large-scale pictures of Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, and other U.S. metropolises. And in her home state of Ohio, Cleveland's Museum of Contemporary Art showcases "1999," an older series of photos Opie took on a cross-country road trip--plus "In and Around the Home," a brand-new glimpse into Opie's family. In one photograph in the latter series, her toddler son sports a pink tutu. "He would wear pink every day of his life," Opie says with a laugh.

What inspired your interest in "American Cities," the name of your show at Gladstone?

It started with Los Angeles. I shot freeways and then mini-malls, which completely show the diversity of L.A. You can tell you're in South Central because of the barbecue joints and the hair weaving, and you venture to Chinatown and it has a completely different aesthetic. I'm really interested in how buildings, architecture, and ideas of space begin to connote a certain identity of place. I have two more cities to shoot, Pittsburgh and Houston. I really could do this project for the rest of my life, but after these last two I'm going to call it a day.

The photos are amazingly clear for such expansive shots. How did you achieve that level of clarity?

It's the size of the negative, 7 by 17 inches. The clarity is unsurpassed because you are dealing with such a big negative surface--you can actually read every little crack and piece of dirt in it.

You've said that "In and Around the Home" is a response to the religious right. How so?

This conservative trend within American culture is not going away. Everyone thinks, "Oh, it's going be OK, we will have our Clinton heyday again," and that's not true. The religious right is too powerful and too well organized, and it's actually creating legislation that is going to affect us for the rest of our lives--and my children's lives. I really wanted to create a body of work that showed the complexities around the idea of complacency. Should I be complacent because I am a successful artist who can afford to buy my own home, have a family, and do the things that I've wanted?

That series clearly has a queer context, which is missing from your urban portraits. Have you ever received negative feedback from your gay fans for your work that isn't overtly gay?

I never have. I feel like the people who support me are really broad. What bothers me, though, is when everybody goes back to some of my earlier work of the S/M community or Pervert la photograph of a hooded woman in leather pants, naked from the waist up, with a nipple ring and the word PERVERT carved above her breasts] and then wonders, Why is she is doing work about cities? Stretch your mind a little--I am interested in other things than queer culture.

"American Cities" is on view through October 14 at the Gladstone Gallery, New York City. "1999" and "In and Around the Home" are on view through December 30 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland.

Terrell is a New York-based journalist who also writes for Poz and RealHealth.