Impositions (2002)

The fifteen large photographs in Impositions have had central shapes physically cut out and removed from them. The cut-out shapes are patterns culled from the public, commercial sphere, and then imposed on the photographs. The remaining periphery of each image is framed between two pieces of Plexiglas, allowing a view through the hole to the wall behind. The destruction of a coherent image in this way seems especially unsettling because of our intense relationships with photographs and our usual expectations of photography. We rely on photography in its multiple manifestations to inform much of our understanding of the world. We often use personal photographs to create representations of our lives that conform to cultural conventions, and we fetishise photographs in an effort to hold on to past moments. Our frustration at the impossibility of retrieving the missing visual information serves as a metaphor of longing and loss. These works highlight a sense of absence because of their lost centres, while the references and flat visual plane that the negative shapes add to the work bring a new presence. The shadows cast onto the wall by the shaped photographs contribute to the spatial ambiguity of the negative shapes, suggesting a presence where, in fact, there is an empty space. The inspiration for this series came from my interest in the peripheral images that were discarded when I made the Cut-Outs, a series of photographs cut into the shapes of commercial packaging patterns.