Description:
The piece is an installation which consists of an interior and exterior space. The exterior consists of numerous folds of black plastic, spilling out to the edge of the gallery. Once inside the installation there is a map of the coordinates of every oil spill recorded in the past 100 years. All of the numbers have been pierced with a needle into this large expanse of black plastic, a product of refined oil, allowing the light from the other side to illuminate them. Additionally there is a camera obscura which projects the outside street view (right side up, with the aid of a mirror) onto a piece of black plexiglass, the effect of which recalls a Claude glass, a device used by 18th century “picturesque” landscape painters. These black mirrors were used by standing with one’s back to the landscape they were interested in painting and recreating the tonal variations produced in the black mirror. The connection being drawn is that it is through an abstraction and definition through image that we are able to acknowledge a state of crisis, once the image disappears so does the crisis from our minds.
Title:
Reflecting Back on Black
Year:
2010
Media:
Camera obscura, mirror, steel, plexiglass, black plastic
Dimensions:
122” x 157” x 196”
