ABOUT
My photographs intend to challenge viewers to abandon conditioned frames of reference and mental labels associated with the visuals and emotions of everyday life. When we learn to apprehend elements in our visual field unencumbered by the filter of our cataloguing minds, we begin to appreciate that every visual moment has a structure and beauty that calls out to be experienced directly and fresh. Ordinary architectural features, folded bits of paper or common objects can become portals for the imagination to take flight. Instead of letting subject matter dictate interpretation, we can choose to access our native ability to abstract, to make connections, and to mentally surf the tropes of design that allow us to see something that was never there before. In literature, tropes are terms and language that transcend the literal to convey symbolic content. Metaphor, allusion, and irony are examples of this. In the visual realm too, color, form and composition can become figurative tools for the crafting of meaning. All of my work is based on this practiced “way of seeing” that offers up everything before our eyes for reinterpretation. Elemental components are addressed to encourage the imagination to re-contextualize one set of visual assumptions into another.
Reed Hearne