Lucas Blalock, Jessica Eaton The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts
Montreal-based Jessica Eaton and Brooklyn-based Lucas Blalock create interconnected imagery–each in their own way–through experimentation with situations, objects, and photographic techniques. Their process-based images are altered to such an extent that when finished, the subject is depicted as a new entity.
Eaton’s analogue images of still life and landscape are intricately built with in-camera masking of negatives and the addition of red, green, and blue filtration. Referencing Divisionism–the mid 1880s painting style defined by the practice of separating colours into dots or patches–Eaton explores how images function physically. Through the Gestalt effect, the form generating capacity of the senses, her images of coloured spheres oscillate between representation and abstraction.
Blalock’s portraits are created with a combination of in-camera and post-production digital techniques. In the series Nautilus (2010), the layers and tools of Photoshop are kept visible, revealing the depiction of form as a study of possibilities. By presenting a multitude of viewpoints–whether through a series of images or a single frame–Blalock references theories of perception. Through an ongoing exploration of duplication and manipulation of the subject, he establishes a tension between figure and photographic surface.
Both artists use the camera to investigate optic strategies and resulting visual phenomenon. By way of abstraction, repetition, sequence, and photographic processes, they achieve a dynamic whole–greater than the sum of its parts.
Curated by Persilia Caton