In
9 Planes, 5 Unrealized, 2007, utopian ideals take shape through
aerodynamic ingenuity. These re-photographed portraits of
both real and imagined airplanes serve as doubly mediated
representations of travel, possibility, speed and desire.
Captured in mid-flight and suspended against a multitude
of colored clouds, they embody an individual’s attempt to
reconcile one’s place in the natural world. Repurposed as
“painted photographs,” the plane images relate to Lichtenstein’s
ongoing series of Shadow Photographs. In this body of work,
painted outlines of plants and flowers take on the appearance
of shadows cast by non-existent still-lifes or vegetation
set against a darkened sky, thereby challenging the verisimilitude
of the photographic process through the application of painterly
traditions. The doubling at play in the shadow photographs
echoes throughout the exhibition in the form of diptychs
whose subject matter ranges from an ancient tree felled by
a violent storm to the artist herself entranced by a homemade
Dreamachine (a stroboscopic device that produces visual stimuli).
Throughout these images, evocations of the sublime in the
natural world are juxtaposed with a more interior search
for enlightenment.
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