The Collection: Clear Mirror

Clear Mirror draws reference to a surface both transparent and reflective: a barrier which obstructs but allows the viewer’s gaze to pass through while simultaneously producing a mutated reflection of the self. In the age of selfies, surveillance, facial recognition, and deepfakes, portraiture as an artistic practice has been turned on its head. As subjects, individuals are offered supposedly infinite control over how they are represented, with tools like Photoshop and Facetune. At the same time, corporations and state entities constantly capture and repurpose our likenesses for obscure ends.

A newfound level of anxiety around self-image has propagated on this shifting ground. Indicative of a larger movement within portraiture, the works in the exhibition evade the various apparatuses which mediate identity and which exert control over the ways we see ourselves and others. Some works express a dysmorphic alienation; others might be viewed as an attempt to wrest back the reins of representation. Through the distortion, a moment of recognition: if our differences are to be used as a means of control, here we become abstract—not formless, but spectral.