Liz Deschenes
b. 1966, United States
Gallery 4.1.1 (Version 2) #2, 2016
Pigment prints on acrylic, artist frames inset
2 parts each 189.2 x 146.1 x 25.4 cm
Gallery 4.1.1 (Version 2) #2 consists of two large, open rectangular frames, each housing a unique monochromatic photograph. The photographs are produced with a state-of-the-art digital pigment printing process, and their varied blue tones are based on the Blue Wool Scale, a system originally developed for the textile industry to measure the permanence of coloured dye. As the photographs reflect the viewer’s forms in their image as they move around the artwork, different layers of colour and depth get presented at any point in time, and the state of the artwork itself is constantly in flux. Furthermore, the large sculptural quality of the frames disrupts the viewer’s movement within the gallery space, heightening their awareness of their relationship with the architectural setting of the space. Coupled with the angled position of the photographs within their frame which exaggerate the viewer’s perception of depth, these perspectival shifts become attributed to the physical quality of the artwork rather than the visual.
Photo: Stephen Faught, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York
Liz Deschenes (b. 1966) is an American contemporary artist concerned with the fluidity of photography, challenging conventional definitions of photography as a medium. Untethered to a single technology, method, process, or subject, Deschenes instead explores more fundamental concepts like light, paper, chemistry and time. In doing so, she plays with the viewer’s perception by using old photographic methods, such as using photogrammetry exposure to create unique shifting surfaces that toe the line between sculpture and image. Deschenes thus pays attention to the architectural context of her works in order to reveal the viewer’s broader relationship with the space, by introducing new ways of seeing as well as performing interventions in the architectural space. Having exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad, her work is featured in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Guggenheim, among others.
