OHT Gallery Boston

Previous Exhibits

Mercurial States

Judith S. Larsen

May 6 - 28, 2005
Reception: Friday, May 6, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

O·H+T gallery is pleased to present Mercurial States, an exhibition of digitally printed photographs by Judith Larsen. As the title suggests, the work in this exhibition is fluid, illusive, subject to change.

Judith Larsen introduced her digital photographs of the human figure (Invisible Alphabet) at O·H+T in 2002. These photographs depicted nude female figures in fetal poses, onto which Larsen had projected transparencies of images taken from science and art history. While using the same basic format for her new work, Larsen makes some striking changes. Departing from a solitary vessel-like form, she pairs a male figure and a female figure, as well as two female figures, to create complex tableaux. In a move away from the sepia and grey-blue tones of earlier work, the photographs in Mercurial States are printed in black and white, or rather deep ebony and warm cream. Corda depicts a pair of figures entwined to form a knotted shape onto which a ribbon-like pattern is projected. Sleepy eyes peer from the face of the female figure, jarring the viewer into realizing that this is not a strange abstract shape floating in a black void.

Larsen forces us to re-evaluate issues introduced in her earlier work. Questions surrounding the female nude shift with the introduction of the male figure, though both are almost sexless. No longer relying on the figure as a vehicle for information, Larsen selects projections that work with the figures to transform them into quasi-abstract forms. Though she edits her choices in these photographs, they are still open to interpretation, or as critic Shawn Hill observes, "there's a lot here to unpack."