Heather Cleary

Heather Cleary

Work from her oeuvre.

“Reality can be impossible to pin down, and these images intend to further explore this notion.  I work at home with domestic objects such as side tables, fruit, magazines and houseplants. By selecting, modifying, segmenting, and/or isolating items from their context, I pull objects from utility into abstraction.  I make the mundane questionable, playfully dubious.  In this way, these photographs explore the relationship between impartial objects and personal perceptions, focusing on the subtleties that produce multiple layers of experience.

I could exhibit the objects, but I choose to use the photographic form because it evokes doubt.  Photographs themselves are suspect, lending to both substantiated evidence, as in crime photos or photo identification, and to perpetuate fantasy, as in advertising or editorial images. One needs to know the purpose of the photograph in a context to trust its veracity. The act of viewing a photograph is now one of discernment.  It is the act of establishing a relationship or finding orientation.

For me omitting information is a way to create focus.  By choosing subjects that suggest multiple identities, placing originals next to replicas, allowing matter to hover between visible and invisible, by deconstructing objects and displaying them flat, I aim to activate the mind.  I intend to splinter implicit assumptions by generating distrust.  Pulling back the layers of belief and certainty to reexamine accepted truths is what engages me to make the next picture.” – Heather Cleary

via Hey Hot Shot.

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