"Empty, Without Holiness"
This image creates a visual conundrum that encourages the eye to render its own conscious interpretation of what is being shown. The shot is oriented such that the opening cut from the flank of a giant chemical tank - discarded among the weeds at a salvage yard - aligns in center position with the frame of the image perimeter. This alignment prompts the viewer to perceive the black square as being somehow external to the subject and floating on top of it, perhaps imposed artificially by the photographer, much as Rene Magritte once floated an apple in front of a businessman's face, or akin to how Georges Rousse designs visual non sequiturs. Seeking to resolve this ambiguity, alert viewers spot the cut-out piece in the grass.
The picture's formal symmetry and its circle-and-square design echo that of a central icon in world art, Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. The subject also evokes the classic mill stone of Chinese antiquity, and, more distantly, design elements of Bosch's medieval Garden. Building indirect resonances or archetypal allusions into an image is another means of beauty alienation.
TITLE - "Empty, Without Holiness"
WHERE - San Diego, California (2016)