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THRU A LENS: CANDACEE WHITEJAN 9 - 29
Opening Second Friday, Jan 9, from 5-8pm and continues through Jan 29.
Gallery hours after opening: Thursdays 5-8pm, Saturdays 1-5pm
This exhibit offers the lens shape as a vehicle for appreciating the interconnection between all things; using it as an aesthetic element, as a ubiquitous and naturally occurring shape, and as a metaphor for seeing. The lens is the shape formed between two intersecting circles.
During a residency in Mexico City in 2025, I focused my research on the shape of the lens—a form that recurs in spiritual imagery as well as in nature. I learned about the use of lenses and related shapes in art, mathematics, science, and the natural world. The lens is a shape defined mathematically by its relationship to other shapes, yet it is also a ubiquitous organic structure—vital, recurring, and essential to vision, growth, and movement. I began to see the lens as both a symbol and a metaphor for universal interconnection—an image that represents how we perceive the world.
Since returning home, I have expanded on this body of work into five categories:
The environments are a series of compositions with shapes inspired by organic objects, and textures from the natural world. These invented compositions contain the prevalence of lens and lens-like or lens-related shapes in the world. The shapes exist in the imagination, as much as in nature. Within these environments, I consider the space between shapes as the cosmic soup in which all living things exist; dark matter, water, blood, or energy. I use watercolor because water is necessary for organic life.
Like the panels of Aby Warburg, in my collections, I display a range of naturally occurring and man-made lenses. These compositions mirror my environments in that they are not neatly arranged, but more intuitively organized. I use collage to keep an expansive view of lens and lens-related objects in the collection.
In my ‘icons of universal interconnection’, I imagine a neutral, universal icon for sharing connection between humans, and the interconnection between all matter and life. I primarily use linocut for these icons, because working in multiples allows greater access to the work.
The cosmology pieces explore how geometry can be represented with craft. The lens exists in relation to circles. Viewing celestial bodies through different angles and perspectives, over time, artists have used elliptical, lenticular and crescent shapes to understand the geometry of our universe.
I use the eye as a metaphor for our shifting perspectives. I am fascinated by the invisible nuance of shifting ideas, and of waxing and waning faith. I use these pieces that contain figures and representational imagery as a way to express the human story of seeking, longing and feeling awe of the mysterious.
This exhibit invites viewers to consider the depth and meaning that can emerge from a single recurring form. The intersection of math, science, nature, and spirituality reveals the lens not merely as a shape, nor solely as a way of seeing, but as a symbol of interconnectedness.
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