They Sprang When Everything Was Still by Elizabeth M. Brooks

Baltimore-based HHS! contender Elizabeth M. Brooks writes:

The pictures make precise reference to the world of fact, the world of the real, and then they distort it. Ever so slightly, lights, figures, juxtapositions, and oddities disobey the conventions that we use to parse reality. In the images, I am blurring the edge between what exists and what does not. These images are selections from a larger body of work titled Penumbra.


Penumbra literally means the space around a shadow, or the halo that hovers around a glowing object. It is a liminal space, a fiction created by our eyes to reconcile visual incongruence, and to make sense of juxtaposition. A penumbra is entirely subjective; it exists only by virtue of what it stands next to. I see the penumbra as a metaphor for the way that we perceive almost everything. It is impossible to escape the subjectivity of our vision and memory, our efforts to locate the self in relation to everything else.

Her ideas are akin to Fall 2007 Hot Shot Carlo Van de Roer's two most recent projects, Orbs and The Aura Portrait Machine. Between the two projects, Van de Roer explores the nature of vision and photography's inadequacies in deciphering and explaining both how and what we see. It seems, if seeing is believing, deciding the truth is still up to the seer.

They also recall Duane Michals' narrative and philosophical interests. He was among the first to push the conventions of traditional photography, manipulating light and creating a world where all is not what is appears to be.

Sadly, more of the Penumbra series is not yet available on Brooks' website for further inspection of what is, what seems to be and what may be appearing in the world that she is creating. Looks like more is coming soon though!

PS. If you want to support Carlo's The Aura Portrait Machine, pick up Orb 5 (Long Island, New York) on 20x200! Proceeds from sales go to benefit Carlo's new work. Read all the details in Jen's newsletter.