The eye is our mirror to the world but the images we see are distorted, simulated and reflected back by our perceptions and the environment we live in. Simulacrum is the way artists investigate and reflect on the reality that surrounds them.
This exhibition gathers a series of works created in the fall of 2020 that follows the path of an election year, a world health crisis, protests on civil rights movements that have not been seen since the 1960’s and a nation divided by political unrest. The influence of this period is reflected in all pieces. Katey-Rose Redhead’s Strenuis Series represents an internal world that is growing and expanding through personal fulfillment. Drew Ma’s piece Doctors during Covid-19 expresses the veneration to our frontline workers. Ma describes her careful composition where the portraits of the doctors are facing one another symbolically needing to face a difficult situation but at the same time mirroring one another:
“At the top of the image is a portrait of a single person. Figure stares at the audience. At the bottom of the image are portraits of two doctors. They are looking at each other. The doctor on the left is helping the doctor who wears the protective clothing to wear a mask.”
We see our interior worlds expand as we deep dive in the introspection of Karin Colbourne’s Untitled Series that have been amplified by the silent bullhorn of her identity caught up in the uncertainty of our time as she describes in the following:
“This type of isolation, was different for me, in that whilst being subjected to this forced silence I was left to think about so many things I never really gave a second thought about before, and this thoughts then caused confusion and worry.”
The effects of social isolation and loneliness that are personified in Guorui Li’s fallen angel in her piece titled Depression. The color scheme and symbolism of Li’s work remind the viewer of the mishap of Icarus going through a blackhole.