Mirrors that Hide
'Mirror, Mirror off the Wall', 2002 (oil on canvas, 122 x 183 cm)
This body of work consists of paintings, polished graphite panels and plaster mirrors. It arose from an interest in the specularity of thought, the history of mirrors, and the nature of the objectivity we seek when looking in mirrors. The panels below use graphite powder, wax, acrylic, gilt, and ink on MDF and were inspired by the mirror in Van Eyck's 'Arnolfini Marriage' and other historical mirrors such as Leonardo's pocket mirror. An earlier temporary covering of an entire wall with graphite and wax led not only to the works below, but to the building of a graphite-lined octagonal room built during a 2003 public residency. See The Cabinet of Imagined Mirrors' [photography by Sally Bream]
There is no reflected delay from June’s mirrors: the delay is eternal. These are mirror portraits of an unrecognisable self: an unlikeness. Mirror sculptures that allow us to imagine a reflection, to choose ourselves, enabling our different faces that exist in divergent roles to align. We don’t escape ourselves when we shut our eyes, we just escape the revelation of reflection; looking at these mirrors is like seeing with your eyes shut. Mirrors that hide; mirrors that simplify. |
Plaster & graphite mirrors
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The Cabinet of Imagined Mirrors, 2003
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Wall detail
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