Alexander Perrelli

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

For many years now I have been working to convey the core material and conceptual properties of photography towards a deeper understanding of those properties, often reimagined within a sculptural context. The acts of looking and seeing are at a most fundamental level the connective tissue between photography and sculpture. But it is my belief that the true prowess of photography is how its mechanical and material nature analogizes the world. The moment the image is made affirms an absolute “present tense;” it is a one dimensional space that cannot be filled with anything but itself. This is where “the image” and “the world” coexist and separate from one another simultaneously. While this notion is inherent to the medium, to me it becomes far more explicit when the traditional modes of operation and materials for producing photographs are stripped away either to varying degrees or entirely. What is paramount in these works is the play between a sense of arresting time, as per photographic film or the print, and the phenomenological aspect of how the images within these works are being experienced in real time, based on the interactions of the materials I utilize to complete each piece. Images 1-6 are works of assemblage that I consider to be photographs in a constant state of simultaneous exposure and fixation. Latex is translucent and permeable to light, while aluminum is reflective. Both are of fundamental importance as light is activated by their materiality such that...

Artwork