Through the Looking Glass questions our view of self and how we define life and the world around us. It seeks to explore the active and passive act of reflection. Each work examines themes of reality, life, time, space, and physicality. Each serves as a confrontation, seeking engagement with the viewer visually and intellectually.
Set in the time and the society in which we find ourselves today, we as individuals are both a participant and sum of the space in which we inhabit. This show encourages the viewer to challenge their usual perceptions and perspectives of portraiture. Intuition, insight, and intellect have taken precedence over structure, formality, and tradition. This line of work questions why, and encourages viewers to do the same.
The work varies from a series of self portraits done through the reflection of a mirror, to depictions of the younger self and family. After moving back to my childhood home I began looking through the many scrapbooks my mom has made documenting the family’s history. As I paged through, I noticed my reflection layering itself atop the plastic encased sheets of old family photos. Seeing my reflection on the sheets led me to a similar introspection and thought processes that had consumed my brain during the creation of drawings I created from the mirror. This experience returned me once again to the themes aforementioned, sparking a continuation of this body of work through portraits of both familial youth and my own. It guided the progression of thought to follow the ideas of modern psychology that place importance on childhood and developmental psychology. The work began with the current physical self through the mirror, yet scrapbooks allowed me to begin to go back to the past to further traverse across my inner landscape, learning more about the self in the process.
Through the Looking Glass is a title in which you might already be familiar due to the writings of Lewis Caroll. Alice who is central to Wonderland serves as a parallel to both the work and self as I have found myself embarking on a journey that would make me question my reality, sanity, and desires. When Alice traveled through the looking glass, a whole world lay in front of her on various journeys before returning. Just as Alice set out in Carrolls stories, this work is a journey; the internal landscape and psyche serves as the rabbit hole down into the self. Wonderland is full of anything imaginable, having as many twists and turns as we may imagine, just as the depths of a person can be. This work encourages the impossible to be imagined, believed, and sought after just as these stories have. The power of the mind and soul is perhaps on a scale that cannot yet be understood, and Through the Looking Glass acts to serve as a catalyst in accessing a more limitless way of thinking.
