The Mirrors series features seascapes that incorporate a mirror, allowing multiple or opposite views of a scene to simultaneously appear. The mirror becomes a window, a door, a wall. The coastline imparts a feeling of being at the edge of the known world, a sense of being able to go no further. To transcend these limitations is to go beyond the natural world and into a spiritual one.
Mirrors invite us to look for ourselves; yet in these images, the mirror reveals only light or a detail of the scene. Subtle realms reflected in the glass hint at the existence of places and things beyond our direct experience, while glimpses of events happening out of direct view evoke a sense of temporality. By illuminating some of the atmosphere and mystery of our existence, I hope to engage the viewer to imagine and appreciate, with eyes wide open, the evanescence of life. For this series I position in each natural landscape a 12x12" flat mirror, like those used by Robert Smithson for his 1969 site-specific work Displacements. The final C-prints are presented on 16x20" paper with the image area measuring precisely 12x12", to emphasize the frame-within-a-frame presentation of the photographic plane enclosing a mirror plane. I shoot with medium-format color print film, and the images are unmanipulated.
For more information, please contact Regan Avery at mail@reganavery.com or visit www.reganavery.com