Carrie
My body of work explores how we view the built environment around us. I investigated the perception of the structures and how to emphasize their importance. My initial pieces focus on distortion through layering and blurred reflections, as showcased in my ceramic piece Perception. I continued to develop these concepts, shifting towards the connections between the layers and how to highlight this complexity to the naked eye, as presented in my installation Metrocity. I intend to engage my audience in intriguing and thought-provoking pieces that make them more cognisant and curious of structure while walking through their city.
My first piece, Citywalk, studies the idea of reality and perception. I used collage mediums of gesso and smudged ink to abstractly combine shape and drawing. I portrayed the complex layers of reality that are mimicked and distorted in reflective surfaces through both geometric and organic forms. I was inspired by the photographs of my Citywalk exploration to create my realistic painting Framed Blur and my ceramic piece Perception. My motif of reflections is inspired by Richard Estes, who often portrays the contrast between reflected and real surfaces.
My installation piece, Metrocity, shifts towards distorting images by connecting the lines within them. The colored plexiglass filters highlight the graphic printed lines of the metro scenes, emphasizing the intricacies of my audience’s urban environment. The interconnectedness of this piece inspired my following collage pieces, De Construction and Collide, which connect images through line and form. These pieces were influenced by collage artists Keita Mori and Claire Trotignon, who intertwine individual shapes through lines to create abstract structural landscapes.
My final pieces are retrospective. Blurred Landscape uses similar layering paint techniques to Framed Blur to display the opposing perspective lines that blur my audience’s objective view of the building. Similarly to the photos in Metrocity, Subways of the Northeast displays a series of photographs drawing my audience’s attention from an outside view of a metro to an inside view. The lines that subtly follow across the margins of this composition highlight the interconnection of metropolitan systems and layers to my audience.
My exhibition space is a U-shaped space with two separate entrances that divide my work into three main sections. As my exhibit does not have a clear starting point, I mixed my themes to create a coherent and balanced space. In one section, Framed Blur, my first reflection painting, is hung next to Subways of the Northeast with Citywalk laid out on a block below. This combination introduces my three main themes of reflection, connection, and abstraction. My audience can then turn around to observe my installation pieces, Perception and Metrocity. My audience should circle to experience various points of view, as overhead artificial lighting adds highlights and shadows that change depending on the viewpoint. This transitions my audience towards my chef d’oeuvres, Blurred Landscape, framed between two pillars. My audience will then find DeConstruction and Collide spanning across an entrance to connect two sections. This exhibit presents the dynamism of the built environment by drawing my audience from saturated to desaturated color and varying the scales of my pieces throughout the space.
My exhibition is intended to engage my audience in a reflection of the city around them. I wanted to provoke my audience’s curiosity and creative thinking by displaying new viewpoints and abstractions of the urban environment. For my 2D pieces, like Blurred Landscape and Collide, my audience should observe both up close, to feel the material quality of the collages and paintings, and from afar, to experience the reflective effects and linear connections of the images. I hope that my audience will leave my exhibition with an open and curious eye towards the environments they find themselves in so they can appreciate buildings as more than just blocks but as dynamic and interactive spaces filled with reflection, line, and color.
Subways of the Northeast (March 2024)
Photography
60cm x 136cm
Subways of the Northeast is a photographic series of images I took of the New York City and Philadelphia subway systems. Each image captures a different level of the subway system from the outside to the inside, displaying the depth of urban infrastructure. This series presents the interconnectedness of the subway systems through lines and motifs. I was inspired by the simplicity of line and form in Simon Phipps’ monochrome photography of brutalist architecture.
Metrocity (May 2024)
Acrylic Paint on Wood, Transparent plastic prints, colored acrylic sheets
10cm x 51cm x 51cm
Metrocity explores how light and color can distort city scenes. I was inspired by Logan Hicks and Carnovsky, who both employ intertwining color and line to distort images. Using my photos in Photoshop, I explored the connections of shape and line between urban scenes. By combining these photos, Metrocity evokes the complexity of cityscapes, emphasizing how often line and color intertwine to distort our perception.
Framed Blur (November 2023)
Acrylic Paint on wood
66cm x 24cm
Framed Blur is a realistic painting of a window reflection from a photograph I took. The window reflection, painted with watered-down paint, was created with thin layers that built depth and tone to show how the light was reflected off the glass. I followed Richard Estes’ work to explore this realistic reflective effect. Additionally, the opaque acrylic paint frame supports my city duality concept: contrast in perspective between reflection and real structure.
Collide (December 2024)
Printed paper, acrylic paint, posca pen
66cm x 56cm
Collide is a mixed-media collage that explores the lines of buildings and their interconnectedness. Using photos I took, acrylic paint, and black marker, I warped the photos, composing an abstract birds-eye view of a new structure. I was inspired by Keita Mori who uses strings to connect shapes, guiding his audience through the futuristic structure created. The graphic center draws the audience’s eye inwards and then the lines guide their eyes outwards into the abstract structure.
Blurred Landscape (March 2024)
Acrylic paint on wood
123cm x 102cm
Blurred Landscape is a realistic acrylic painting based on a photograph I took of a building in Hudson Yards, NY. Inspired by Brendan Neiland, I contrasted watered and solid acrylic paint as well as bright and dark colors to create the reflection, which spans both the window panes and the metal frame of the building. Blurred Landscape explores how layers and perspectives are blurred by modern architecture, challenging the city duality concept of Framed Blur in traditional architecture.
