In the City, You Forget to Look at the Sky
Living in the city, I never look up at the sky. But every time I travel outside city limits I discover that I have fallen victim to my own amnesia. Once hidden by the light of the buildings, the flood of stars reminds me of my own limited perspective.
This awareness of my own perceptual limitations informs my work. I’m interested in the self-imposed blinders that we all wear- what we choose to notice and what we unconsciously omit from our periphery. My work unlocks default habits of looking and draws viewer’s awareness to their own perception.
In this project, photographs are presented in sculptural frames to emulate the experience of peripheral vision: the image is mounted to the inside of the steel frame facing the wall, while a mirror reflects the photograph towards the viewer. The steel frame obscures a straightforward viewing angle, so viewers must press their bodies against the wall, crouch below to look up and peek around the sides of the sculptural frame to catch glimpses of the reflected photographic imagery. The subtle ephemeral moments and optical phenomena the viewer discovers in the photographs are hazy and slightly askew-- accentuating the fleeting nature of the unconscious. Through presenting photographs that are only visible by way of a mirror, the viewer’s own reflection becomes intertwined with the artwork and they are urged to confront their perceptual limitations.