RAY IM

Lens-Based Artist

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Through two-dimensional digital photography and three-dimensional ceramic objects, I explore and challenge the fluid relationship between documentation and dimensional objects. I create contemplative ceramic objects and use the photographic lens to interrogate them visually. The installations that I create use the insight of the lens to rediscover the materiality of the ceramic objects.

 

In my practice, there are two-dimensional photographic prints collaged in a process that mirrors the way that I build my ceramic forms. The resulting image is then transferred onto physical objects and incorporated into larger installations. Much like staging a shot in traditional photography, the placement of each element tells a story. With every edit, digitally and physically, an alternative reality is built from carefully collaged objects and images. 

 

Shifting between three-dimensional clay and two-dimensional photography allows an exchange to take place. In this exchange process, the ceramic object and its identity are blurred. The original object is not quite here nor there. In these fluid moments of exchange, both ceramics and photography are questioned. What is captured in the making of an object? What is captured in an image? The qualities of objects and images are in constant flux as they transform from one to another and back again. This interrogation of object and image leads to questions of identity as the artwork’s materiality flickers between presence and absence.