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"My intention is to make images that are not literal documentation or visual recordings of objects... They shouldn't be considered a record of something that exists somewhere in the world. A sort of transference occurs - three-dimensional construction transfers through the camera onto the film. Now the two-dimensional photographs are the objects." To first encounter Pamela Ellis Hawkes' haunting silver print photographs is to embark on an elegant inquiry into the ambiguous nature of perception and visual objectivity. Hawkes invents black and white images which combine an array of found objects and paper constructs, resulting in provocative collages of abstraction and representation. With the exception of her most recent work, Hawkes has worked to confound our expectations of traditional "still lifes" by photographing objects "purely for their form, texture, size and basic anonymity. Their purposes are not explicit and therefore they are malleable to my purposes without the sentimentality which limits the imagination." Hawkes' captivating new series entreat the viewer to divorce depicted objects from their function. Lustrous shapes of glass and metal dance in and out of focus, their layered arrangements taking on the ephemeral logic of dreams. Against fathomless black backdrops - reminiscent of the velvet curtains used in antique photos - objects appear to hover unanchored, depriving the viewer of any temporal or physical reference points. By challenging the viewer to endow each object, whether two-dimensional or solid, with an equal claim to existence or symbolism, she reminds us that "the reality is the recognition." Hawkes' photographs have received numerous awards including those from The Photographic Resource Center, Boston, The 21st Journal of Contemporary Photography Award, 74th and Philadelphia's Print Club's International Competition. Her work is represented in many private and public collections including that of the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Polariod Corporation. |
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