Letter from the Curator:
When we at the Vacant Museum released our call for submissions for Traversing the Looking Glass, we asked ourselves some basic questions about mirrors. We thought we’d be lucky to receive submissions with many of the same answers and images. To our complete pleasure and surprise, each and every one of our artists who submitted had an entirely unique take on the definition and function of the looking glass. As we discovered and hope you discover as well, a reflective surface is a means for finding truth, realizing the subconscious, exploring another reality, and traveling through time. A looking glass can be a malleable material, a character, and even a feeling. Most of all it is something which forces us to look deeper. Welcome to Traversing the Looking Glass, a collection of reflections.
-S
Casper Verborg
Den Haag
Event, no.3 (detail)
“The round shapes you can see in the painting have an ambiguous function. They are balloons, lanterns and air bubbles; heavy and transparent at the same time. They are floating between the people and put up a barrier between image and spectator, as disturbing elements placing themselves in front of the depiction, complicating the viewing process. Thus there rises an inevitable and growing desire to view past them, to view one’s way through the foliage and discover the parallel universe beyond. “
Click HERE for the full experience!
Stephanie Andrews, Gel Pen Collective
San Francisco, CA
fragment space
An interactive and exploratory looking glass. View it HERE for the full experience!
Omphemetse Patient Ramatlhatse
South Africa, Johannesburg. T360 Lawley extension 8
A Selonyana se ke Kgosi? (Is this thing a King?)
@mphimi_r / @Being.Black.Moving
Mashangane bag ( China bag), Sponge, and stitching human form sculpture, life-size.
“Selonyana” speaks to being a being in constant migration, seeking settlement. Whether it be physical, spiritual or psychological. Selonyana, meaning “little thing” in seTswana, my home language, is an term, when used towards a person, has with it connotations of worthlessness and dehumanising.
When Selonyana was made in 2017, they were made in this context, of worthlessness, baggage, inferiority. However, as Selonyana developed around new works, they began embodying an important role in my practice, both literally and figuratively.
With one of my newest series named “Kgosi” (King), Selonyana was bestowed with the status of kingship as well. Selonyana is a character which acts as one of the sides to the “diagram” of the artist’s state of being and exists as one of the many physical art objects whose stubborn material will allow it to exist beyond myself as the artist and become some sort of body which will contain my experiences and transitions.”
Rachel Ahava Rosenfield
Chicago, IL
AboutFace (Tell me what you see in the mirror)
http://www.rachelahavarosenfeld.com/
Oil and marble dust on linen
12 in. X 12 in.
“Sometimes I feel that the clarity found in old photographic images is misleading, that it can trick us into thinking that we know more about the subjects than we do. AboutFace is an exploration of a photograph observed as a reflection in a dirty mirror, surrounded by apparitions both tactile and imagined. The limited legibility of the central figure echoes the frustration that plagues us when the attempt to scrutinize our pasts.”
Rachel Daly
Cork, Ireland
Mantle
“I have always been attracted to reflective surfaces, mirrors and glass and the interesting compositions and distortions they create. I often use self-portraiture as a way to discern my own place in these various settings. I find it more intriguing when you are presented with only a trace of a person, whether it’s their shadow, their reflection or a silhouette. Looking at Derrida’s philosophy of hauntology, I am interested in this notion of multiples selves and haunting presences. As interior spaces usually suggest a sense of intimacy, comfort and security, I find it interesting to play with this and create more of an unsettling atmosphere. I am attracted to these Freudian worlds – whereby the things that comfort us and the things we find unsettling often have the same origins. I want my work to delve into this idea of the domestic space as both a site of comfort and disturbance.”
Hugo Houayek
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Reflected Medusa
https://hugohouayek.hotglue.me/
“Medusa, with her thousand eyes, transforms every one that looks at her in stone.
Perseus replaces his own fragile eye with his golden mirror/shield, and the reflection guarantees his victory over Medusa’s gaze, and allow him to cut her head. To defeat Medusa is to defeat death. “
Lisanne Hoogerwerf
The Hague, The Netherlands
The Zone
http://www.lisannehoogerwerf.nl / @lisannehoogerwerf
“Creating art is a magical process. When I work in my studio I let my imagination wander to non-existing places.
Then I grab different materials like found objects, dirt, paint, charcoals and wood to make places that I saw in my mind’s eye appear on my studio-table.
When the landscape I have built has the same feel to it as the landscape I had imagined, I take out my camera and make a picture.
Then I tear it down and the process can start all over again. This landscape I created with different colourful balls, dirt and a charcoal drawing in the background.
For me this landscapes reflects one of my inner exploration through the subconscious mind.”
Robert Patterson
Sleepy Hollow, New York
Getting Ready
@robertburnspatterson
“The Hollywood vanity mirror as a “looking glass” in this piece facilitates an interrogation of the self: What does it mean to perform one’s identity versus living it authentically? Are those two really mutually exclusive? The subject is caught in an intimate moment before they are “ready.” However, in that vulnerability, the subject looks directly at the camera. By doing so, the subject acknowledges their performance in the artwork while at the same time defiantly challenging any questions or judgments viewers might have. For me, this photograph serves to recognize (and assuage) the fears associated with my queer identity.”
Madeline G Bach
New York
Odie + Asya
http://www.madelinebach.com / @tiredhag
“In my drawings, figures become separate from their initial environments with the use of marker while lending complete focus on their presence and form, which is always rendered in a very fine mechanical pencil. My perspective and relationships with my closest friends, and my knowledge of their own self perspective plays a significant role in understanding and portraying their bodies. This piece is one of four in a series where the figures drawn are all shifting their gaze and bodies towards each other instead of the viewer, to signify more intimacy and ease between their respective figures via the basic consumption of food and also to demonstrate more action and involvement within the portrait, and also within their portrayed relationship. To transfer a sense of consistency in time, connection, and memory throughout this series, ghost outlines of previously completed portraits make up the background of this piece, rather than a formal environment or setting. It’s a complex effort to show someone close to you how they are seen by someone else, which can, at times, feed into how they see themselves, and in many ways I strive to take that weight away and show these people in an intimate, yet relaxed state. This always goes back to the methods I treasure of rapidly documenting precious moments, spending an intense amount of time with that moment, and outpouring those moments by way of recreating images and emphasizing memories. I’m immortalizing the people I love, alongside rapid digital photographs that I cling to, and with qualities that are distinctive and idiosyncratic emphasized by the mediums that I use.”
Yi-Wei Elena Wang
France / Taiwan
The Why
@irecruzyah
oil on wood panel
“The lost art of seeing”
“Our senses have become bombarded by floods of images a day, forcing us to look at grids of images within a split second through a frame the size of our mobile phone screens. Our eyes now process hundreds of images a day, every time demanding our minds to make quick judgements about these images – I like, I don’t like – this is good, this is bad – comment or ignore. In a way, I feel like we have lost our ability to really see, to contemplate, to sense a connection between an image and our own feelings and experiences. I therefore challenge you to find a painting, a drawing, a photo, an image, and look at that same image every day, for several weeks. What you see might change over the course of the weeks. Maybe during the fifth week you will really begin to see something. That moment, is when true understanding happens. What did you see? How did you feel? How do they reflect your own desires, fears, relationships, experiences and current state of being? Ultimately, it is not about what is in the image, or whether it is good or not, it is about what you see. That thing that you see is your truth.”
Daniel Marquez
Raleigh, North Carolina
Twindom
Being a twin or having a twin is not an uncommon occurrence, each individual in the pair has their own identity and self-awareness, yet people at times group them as one. With my project ‘Twindom’ I explored the idea between twins being a reflection of one another and merging into one. Through the use of mirrors I tried to convey this idea of becoming one yet being two different individuals.
Gabrielle Vitollo
Berlin, Germany
Radiant Pulse
http://gabriellevitollo.com / @glamgothgabo
“When glassblowing at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, I was forced to make my sculptures — which usually look like paintings — more three-dimensional, because one cannot stop rotating the hot glass or else it will fall and shatter. As a painter, I was quickly seduced by the glass medium because of its shiny, viscous, and translucent properties. Glass comes an array of colors and my recent paintings’ saturated pools of acrylic. Glass is similar to the surface of a glazed painting stretched into a 3D form. The transparent nature of these materials feels like a film negative from which I can manipulate the luminosity as I do with paint. That’s what makes painting or glass unique – contradictions, impossibilities, or abstractions can materialize. Both painting and glassblowing are the intertwining of materials and amorphous shapes in order to give form to invisible thoughts or emotions. In Brooklyn, I blew glass into copper cages that I constructed. If the cage is the structure and the biomorphic bubbling glass is the body, then the light being projected through the object is the spirit that I also depict in my paintings. Looking deep into a piece of blown glass feels like being inside a color, which I also sense when I work with watercolor or listen to certain music. It’s synesthesia. Glasswork is a perfect fusion between process, color, and structure – like a sensation materializing.”
Arielle Bader
Washington, D.C
Red Puddles
@abaderphoto
“Keating Mosher, 21, seen reflected in a rain puddle, plays a solo session of basketball on December 15, 2018, in Tampa, FL. Keating often spends his time searching for new ways to incorporate exercise into his lifestyle after quitting collegiate swimming. I love finding interesting reflective surfaces to capture moments and the term looking glass fits this concept perfectly. These confusing, complex portrayals offer a pause on the constant scrolling of images. They require time and thought to fully understand not only how they were made, but what the message is. “
A. Jambelli
Brazil
Eu Interior
https://www.instagram.com/ajambelli/
We often suppress feelings and suffocate within ourselves. It turns out to be a little hard to understand, because we do it unconsciously. The process of self-knowledge only happens through introspection, where we learn to identify who we are and what we feel, so we can rescue this inner self that needs to break free.
Michael Kwan
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Floor 24 | Rose Gold
https://michaelkwan.myportfolio.com/ https://www.instagram.com/michaelkwan.tif/
“This photograph is a part of a larger series that revolves around this idea of reflection, both literal and internal. To capture these compositions, I find myself forced to face my own reflection and the idea of interior/exterior space becomes a parallel to self identity. This duality, a reflection of the labels we decide to attach ourselves to, but also the labels that are unwillingly attached by others and the struggle and confusion in adhering to one label over the other.”
Eleisha Faith McCorkle
New York, NY
Sacrifices
https://eleisham.yolasite.com/
“I chose to shed a light on the sacrifice my late mother made for my twin sister and I to live. She passed away January 2017, and had Sarcoidosis, a fatal lung condition that led to my mother to be oxygen dependent and have trouble breathing. This piece includes the three types of oxygen tanks and nasal cannulas I had to learn how to change since the age of 7. Charcoal was used to symbolized the cremation process and represent shadow and death. This is also a reflective piece, including self-broken mirror shards to convey introspection for not only me, but for the viewers too.”
Sabrina Godin
Glendale, Rhode Island
Bubblegum Bubble
“The moment before a bubblegum bubble pops is rich in stress and tension. As a child, I would watch with anticipation, and increasing anxiety as people would continue to blow until their bubbles pop. The sensation of release, as you refill your lungs with air only exaggerates the tension of the moment before. I chose to express my anxiety through the tension of a bubblegum bubble. My model looks into the mirror acknowledging all of her tension and anxiety. I capture the moment before the bubble breaks to show the built-up of stress we all feel in moments of distress. “