I was still in my teens when I happened upon an art exhibit that shook me up and changed my parameters.
I’d seen a nondescript, text-only advertisement in our local newspaper (No, there was no internet in those days. Really.) and something in it pulled at me. I don’t remember what it was; the copy wasn’t compelling, the venue wasn’t known to me. But I went, and I’m so glad I did.
I’d had no previous experience with hologram art. Walking through a dingy doorway in a downtown business district, a dark room was filled with odd lighting and many panes of glass, some framed like paintings, and several glass-encased stands. I felt a thrumming in the air, or maybe in my veins as I surveyed the unusual landscape.
And then I began to walk and felt the world shift.
The art was moving, making eye contact with me, beckoning. Some pieces appeared to buck the trend and do nothing, until you got close enough to see through the pane and into another tactile dimension. The pieces appeared to physically affirm the many worlds theory, where all things were possible at the same time in different slices of reality. Physically, it was like that scene in a David Lynch movie: the light shifts and the bass undertones take center stage, creating a neural panic; I wanted to run, shrieking, and also never to leave that room again.
I spent as much time as I could take going through the exhibit, which was mostly empty at the time. Some pieces I couldn’t get close to a second time, the scenes were so startling and frightful. Other pieces you couldn’t escape, as they burst out to and followed you from across the room. Some were funny, some clever, many disturbing: but all were vivid, and present, and as though they were real. Or a different real, but still something accessible.
I left there that day with a headache and a deep desire to transcend dimension in expression. Sadly, like with animatronics there exists a deep, technical gap between my desire and my abilities. But I have found a small way to bridge dimensions in my own creations.
These days, I derive great satisfaction from crafting dolls to match scenes from paintings of mine. Creating a 3D stand-alone narrative based upon a 2D landscape I painted feels almost like being able to step into a dream I’ve had. Seeing the dolls stand forefront and hold a real presence before their static doppelgangers truly pleases me.
Gallery 114 |
Portland, OR
Although other worlds might truly exist in which I’ve been able to add motion to my creations, watch them leap and beckon and spring forth from their physical mirings, at least in this world I’ve done this much.