press release
STUDIO10
Passing Through
Robert Marshall
Opening Reception: Friday, November 10th, 2017 7-9 PM
November 10th - December 17th, 2017
In her new body of reflective work, Robert Marshall continues to explore the shifting and relational nature of perception (and identity). She starts with pictures taken on an iPhone, mostly through car and train windows. These are then printed on mirrored Dibond or silver vinyl. Encountering the pictures that result, we can never be quite certain what we’re seeing. If one moves a few inches, the image changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. These works resist fixity (and thus documentation--they can’t be “accurately” photographed). Marshall wants to draw us into conundrums: How do we know anything with certainty about the perceived world, about a present that’s always entering the past? As critic Lilly Wei writes, “the world depicted in [Marshall’s work] dissolves, reflection upon reflection, into something more uncertain, mysterious and inaccessible. They’re rife with inexplicable, perhaps accidental anomalies … you might ask: is that stray mark a cloud caught by the camera? Or is it a residue of the process, a rebellious smudge of ink? And where did that bit of color come from?”
As Marshall puts it, “I kind of grew up in the back seat of a car. Viewing a suburban world, but viewing it in motion. It was going past. Or we were. There was always a lot of light. And sky. Now I’m often in trains. There’s a feeling about seeing through windows—seeing in motion--which I’m trying to capture. I think we’re always in an active relationship with what we’re looking at. I just don’t know another way to see the world.” John Szarkowski, in his 1978 exhibition “Windows and Mirrors” at the Museum of Modern Art, posited that photography fell into two categories: work that looked outward (windows) and work that looked inward (mirrors). But, according to Marshall, “windows are always potential mirrors. And in my work, the mirror is a window. Perhaps it’s because I’m a self-conscious person. But I can’t take myself out of the picture. My work is also about passing through. I mean passing through the world, but also through the threshold of the picture plane. Then finding yourself on the other side.”
STUDIO10 is located at 56 Bogart Street, Brooklyn.
Gallery hours: Thursday through Sunday 1-6 pm or by appointment. Contact: (718) 852-4396, www.studio10bogart.com
For More about the artist: www.robertmarshall.net