LIGHT

The work presented here delves into the act of perception itself, or to put it another way, what happens when light hits the anatomy of our eye. There is a moment, an instant really, before we begin to interpret and categorize, where all that exists is the phenomena of light itself bouncing off of an object. The photographer Uta Barth has described this as “a moment when everything else dropped away and the experience of seeing, of sensing, became so overwhelming, so all-encompassing, that the very idea of interpretation did not, could not, exist.” In this moment all possibilities exist, yet none are necessary.

Soft focus creates a blurring of the distinction between figure and ground, while the layered construction of translucent material over a reflective surface plays with the notions of flatness and depth. Light bounces around and inside each piece and back to the viewer creating different effects based on the angle from which it is viewed. In this way the quality of the light from the surrounding environment participates in the composition of each work by altering the colors that are reflected and the shadows that are formed. Finally, it is the viewer who completes the work through his or her own unique perception.

Monica Reede

Monica Reede