What we see and believe to be real is often a pact
between social mores and individual perception.
Brought up to understand the world as a set of
circumstances that can be trusted to be secure, is
of course necessary to maintain an order that
encourages positive participation. What the eye
sees, depends upon what we have been coached to see.
What we believe, depends upon what we have been
coached to believe. With the advent of technological
skills that are as handy as a cell phone, or
computer images that can be manipulated to the
extent that the original content is skewed or even
falsified altogether, a sense of unbalance results.
An alteration in perception can refresh the take on
subject matter or it can undermine it. It can also
work to enchant or challenge with the option to
succumb to the new apparition or be challenged by
it, which may in turn cause an impetus towards
investigation.
Alexandra Haeseker’s shaped printed panels register
as having a photo-based origin: what is seen is hard
to recognize as anything from reality. The colors
are seductive, often brilliant and acidic. The forms
within the cut-out silhouettes appear to have been
reconstructed, overtly saturated. These vestiges of
manipulation give a foot-hold into the work; but
still there is a puzzling sensation that there is
something more resonating than has been discovered,
that there is more evidence of the human in these
shapes than is discerned at first glance.
Davida Kidd conversely doesn’t hide what is seen so
much as reveals what we might not have considered as
connections between the subject matters. Often
within an intense or ominous contextualization,
there are visual clues that point in the direction
of narrative but leave an openness that allows for
individual interpretation on the part of the viewer.
The subject matter is familiar. There are people and
things for which we have names, definitions and
contexts, but she sets up scenes where the order is
slightly off, the tempo syncopated, the words of
visual phrases rearranged. The ground is
precipitous, precarious, but as if in high alert,
the consciousness inclines towards a super awareness
over and above the usual call to be present.
TWICE BITTEN
is an invitation to the cautionary tale that lies
between the experience of memory and consequent
apprehensions that stir in the heart of both
artists’ studio research.
Both Davida Kidd and Alexandra Haeseker will be in
attendance at Headbones Gallery’s opening reception
for TWICE BITTEN on Saturday, February 16
from 2 - 5 PM. We will be celebrating with a Royal
High Tea and invite you to drop in.
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