http://sarahpalmer.net/
(2011 Aperture Portfolio Prize winner)
As a Real House
"Editorial Statement:
Sarah Palmer’s series As a Real House is rife with partially submerged tripwires that unsettle the usual process of reading a photograph. Each image contains something—an element or the juxtaposition of elements—that works to trigger an internal pattern-recognition scan of mental databases, in hopes of locking their meaning into recognizable form. Her photos are populated by seemingly inconsequential discards: haphazard collections of wine corks, incomplete puzzles, oyster shells backed with newsprint, bone shards, wishbones, nicked-up “self-healing” cutting mats, scuffed and empty buckets, over- and under-exposed Polaroids. This roster of sad and desolate objects could easily be read as a fairly bathetic set of still lifes. However, the series is also spiked with details that send an energizing quiver through the individual images and the series as a whole. Offset against the quasi-abjectness of the other materials, flashes of wild neon, cool 80s-era geometric patterns, and even the luscious pink of a sliced-open watermelon, give the work an unexpectedly taut, if uneasy, equilibrium.
Sarah Palmer’s series As a Real House is rife with partially submerged tripwires that unsettle the usual process of reading a photograph. Each image contains something—an element or the juxtaposition of elements—that works to trigger an internal pattern-recognition scan of mental databases, in hopes of locking their meaning into recognizable form. Her photos are populated by seemingly inconsequential discards: haphazard collections of wine corks, incomplete puzzles, oyster shells backed with newsprint, bone shards, wishbones, nicked-up “self-healing” cutting mats, scuffed and empty buckets, over- and under-exposed Polaroids. This roster of sad and desolate objects could easily be read as a fairly bathetic set of still lifes. However, the series is also spiked with details that send an energizing quiver through the individual images and the series as a whole. Offset against the quasi-abjectness of the other materials, flashes of wild neon, cool 80s-era geometric patterns, and even the luscious pink of a sliced-open watermelon, give the work an unexpectedly taut, if uneasy, equilibrium.
In today’s ecology of signs, a passing jet plane functions on par with the proverbial lonely seagull. Palmer’s work accomplishes a careful balancing act, giving the viewer enough to feel the currents of meaning underneath the surface of each image, yet leaving enough up in the air so as to withhold a quick and easy read. One is left with the sense that the key to whatever it is that the artist has intended to conjure is left intentionally, tantalizingly just out of reach."
( http://www.aperture.org/portfolio-prize/2011-winners/sarah-palmer/ )
Bird in a Box (after Cornell)
11"x13.75", 2009
Digital Chromogenic Print
The N of All Eqations
20"x25", 2009
Digital Chromogenic Print
20"x25", 2010
Digital Chromogenic Print
Although brimming with apparent inconsequential meaning, the 'hap hazardous'-ness of the subjects chosen remind me of the random nick-hacks we find hidden around our homes. How they have little meaning, or use, on their own, how we find ourselves keeping these objects in some hope they'll be of use to us someday. The way these random objects are composed, also, are abstract in themselves. So finding objects like these in themselves will be a useful tool for interesting framing and composition for abstractive aesthetic.
The Village of Reason
Momento Mori, 2011
There's a certain minimalism I like about these images. The objects although seemingly in their own habitat, still appear segregated and objectified. Perhaps this is an angle I ought to try, and see how the results fair in context with the rest of its sequence. Compare (seemingly) segregated objects in images to objects that are apparent in their usual habitat.
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