Mirror-like Marble (2022)

 

Mirror-like Marble is an on-going enquiry into the illusory characteristics of baroque architecture and the spatial and material qualities of the photographic print. These works are not concerned specifically with the 17th century baroque; its history, geography or artistry, but rather with its traits, its character and its ability to blur the boundaries between materials and art forms.

 

Illusory space was a key characteristic of the baroque style. The use of mirrors, frames, ceiling paintings and trompe l'oeil techniques allowed for a repetition or a doubling of a physical reality as well as an overall unity between architecture, sculpture and painting. Philosopher Gilles Deleuze speaks of the baroque as a material “force”, as “matter” that “tends to flow out of the frame”.

 

(… ) the painting exceeds its frame and is realised in polychrome marble sculpture; and sculpture goes beyond itself by being achieved in architecture; and in turn architecture discovers a frame in the façade, but the frame itself becomes detached from the inside and establishes relations within the surroundings (Deleuze, 2006:141).

 

In baroque sculpture, the solid rock form of marble is also imbued with a sense of movement and dynamism. Similarly, in these works, marble is rendered pliable, transformable and movable by the photographic paper-print, and in baroque fashion, the lines between photography, sculpture and architecture are tested.