ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

In the back gallery, Tucson-based Claire A. Warden’s Mimesis reframes the urge to ask “what am I looking at?” within a larger context of ethnic identity. The large, monochromatic alternative process works blur the lines of photography, inviting the viewer to question their experience:

Reflecting on the perception and presentation of identity informs my approach to photography. I spit on and manually manipulate silver halides in the photographic negative as a representation of the inherent natural and cultural forces in a self-aware and conscious existence. This process produces an image that reveals a certain truth in identity and its inadequacies in language. The abstractions resembling systems of the natural sciences—microscopic, topographic and celestial—allegorizes the complexity of systems that make up an individual and the perception of oneself. 

Mimesis spills into the small back room with a projected video piece by Warden.