Borderline

p|m Gallery is showing Amanda Clyne’s solo exhibit, “Borderline.”
On exhibit from December 8, 2011 to January 28, 2012.

p|m Gallery statement:

“Images breed images in me.” – British painter Francis Bacon

Inspired by fashion and the history of painting, Clyne’s work examines the image as a mirror of our desires. Amidst today’s cultural fascination with beauty and persona, her paintings critique our digital obsession and question the consequences for human intimacy. 

When the viewer first glances at one of Clyne’s paintings, the image and viewer lock eyes. The image stares back with a shifting, slivered gaze, appealing to the viewer to seek resolution of its ever-elusive form. Confronted with irreconcilable fragments or impenetrable blind spots, the viewer struggles to answer the image’s plea. Savoring the seductive exchange, the viewer and image become entwined in an active portrait of the experience of looking.

Clyne begins her process by culling images from fashion magazines and art history books, intrigued by the similarities she sees between contemporary fashion photography and historical portraits of society’s elite — images intended to fuel a spectacle of desire with feigned promises of intimacy and truth.

Cropping the image into a portrait, Clyne re-prints the image on to a surface to which the ink does not adhere, photographing the print as the fluid image morphs and dissolves over time.  She then composes a new image from fragments of these photographs.  Clyne paints this final image as a large-scale painting, the shifting, slivered fragments offering yet denying the viewer resolution of a now elusive form.”

The artist will be giving a talk on January 21, 2012.