Laurel Johannesson’s new photo works focus on the underlying theme of ‘being in a state of precarious limbo.” The Oblivion Seekers “are searching for a space where time is suspended, where they can hover in limbo, and temporarily push memory and knowing into oblivion.”
Johannesson spent a decade photographing primarily underwater in natural settings, in the Aegean, Adriatic, and Tyrrhenian seas, the Côte d’Azur, and Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, looking for oddities produced by this ‘liquid lens.’ Here’s some of that previous work.
Now, she moves the camera above water “to depict the expanse of the sea in relationship to land or horizon, and human or bird. The cliff divers or swimmers are in between freedom (flight) and safety (land) and the turbulent sea is the uncertain suspension that they must navigate between the two.”
These works are large digital prints on folded aluminum with automotive clear coat. (See the whole series here.)
A resident artist in 2016 at the Ionion Center for the Arts + Culture in Kefalonia, Greece, Johannesson says the seabirds (pictured at top) “are a peculiar flock that hover over a particular inlet on a Greek island. They do this every day for very long periods of time. The birds intentionally fly directly into a headwind…going nowhere…occupying a kind of limbo space. It is this in-between space of protracted temporality that I am interested in revealing.”
Laurel Johannesson’s website, here.
Her C.V. here.
Represented by Herringer Kiss Gallery, here.
Discover more from Canadian Art Junkie
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
