Graham Hay

The Venus effect

Graham Hay

Mirror, wood, paper, paint, 61 cm (H) x 68 cm (W) x 18 cm (D)

Titian, van Eyck, Velazquez, Veronese, Manet, Picasso, Whiteley and many other artists have used painted reflected images of the subject or themselves within their paintings to disrupt viewer expectations. I started from my photo of Jillian Ciemitis’s face reflected in the glass covering her photo portrait of artist Kamila Waleszkiewicz. To capture drawings of both two faces within a single image, I created a lenticular image. Carving the drawings into the back of the strips of mirror also places the viewer’s face within the artwork. The folded mirror reverses the viewer’s face. Then placing the lenticular images on a concave surface forces viewers to stand really close to the work in order to decode it, moving the three faces (Jillian, Kamila and ours) into close physical proximity. The viewer is captured within the artwork dissolving the traditional separation of viewer, artist and muse.

Artist statement by Graham Hay.