Stereoseries

“Stereo” was chosen because of the twin image. The core of my concept is light, the perception of time, memory and interior space, while questioning the nature of reality through the direct comparison of painting and photography.
The antique stereoscope, an instrument with two eye pieces for viewing twin photographs that seem to merge, creates a three dimensional illusion. Within the Stereo series, gadgetry and arrested time are left behind, replaced with a more complex and multi-dimensional experience.

The camera sees differently from the eye. This division is paramount to the dynamic of the twin image. In the Stereo, one half is image in the form of painting and one half is the same image captured through photography, using daylight. Joined side by side, the images merge through unifying surface considerations.

Both halves rely on liquid chemical properties. In the painting, the process stops with the solidifying of the polyurethane enamel. The surface image is fixed. Later, the camera stops and records an instant of that painting’s relationship to reflected light, environment and perspective resulting in the darkroom’s fixed photograph.1 This stopped time gives way to perpetual motion however, because of the reflective surfaces in the assembled Stereo itself. The back and forth pull of viewing the twin image contributes to the action as well. Therein, the content of the painting (the markings and surface irregularities2), along with the photograph’s relatively flat surface contrast, are placed within a fluid context simply by the passing of time.

Role reversal between the two images is parallel. The reflections encountered when looking at the glossy painting becomes less an obstacle and more a portal when considering the photograph as key. Conversely, when the light source or viewpoint is changed.

Deep space is experienced through the Stereo’s looking glass of shifting light. The abstract content hovers, seemingly detached, among fragments of reality. Each moment is unique, mysterious, and elusive. The past is an idea existing through the imprint it leaves. Time is captured and released.

1 Although now digital, the photograph is still subject to darkroom development in chemicals. Both digital and traditional output are shot with 35 mm film.

2 Some of the newer Stereos do not have markmaking in the painting's surface. These are conceptual reductions: a minimalist distillation of painting to photograph.

*page last updated May 7, 2008