Through the Looking Glass
Solo exhibition, Space Studio and Gallery, Whanganui 31st August – 13th September 2013
In Looking Glass World, nothing is as it should be. Upside down, inside out, dream becomes reality, reality a dream. The mirror becomes a window, opening up the parallel universe of the doppelgänger, a comprehensive inversion of reality.
Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There in 1871. A pioneering photographer as well as an author, his mirror world references the catoptrics of the view camera and the photographic development process.
Photography, as well as having a dodgy reputation for stealing souls, has long served as a tool of the imagination with the potential to explore new territories. It also carries with it the desire of humans to reveal and document the supernatural.
Alchemy and illusion are both intrinsic to the process. The magic still survives into the digital age in which souls are not only stolen, but instantly disseminated through cyberspace by means of social media.
The souls in this exhibition were stolen with an 1897 Lancaster Instantograph view camera and captured on hand coated silver gelatin dry plates.
Lewis Carroll wrote Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There in 1871. A pioneering photographer as well as an author, his mirror world references the catoptrics of the view camera and the photographic development process.
Photography, as well as having a dodgy reputation for stealing souls, has long served as a tool of the imagination with the potential to explore new territories. It also carries with it the desire of humans to reveal and document the supernatural.
Alchemy and illusion are both intrinsic to the process. The magic still survives into the digital age in which souls are not only stolen, but instantly disseminated through cyberspace by means of social media.
The souls in this exhibition were stolen with an 1897 Lancaster Instantograph view camera and captured on hand coated silver gelatin dry plates.
