About my new project, Tangled

It’s been a while since my last post and the main reason for this is that I’ve been busy making new work.  This is a good thing, so I’m not feeling too terribly bad about falling behind on my blogs.  But it’s about time for an update, so I thought I’d share some of the work.

My new photo project is entitled Tangled and it’s now up as part of a two person show with Maria Pabico LaRodonda at Studio Hart in Buffalo.  Here are three images from the project followed by my artist statement.  I’m really excited about the new work and It’s already expanding in new directions.  I’ll have a solo show in October at The Backroom @ Hardware too.  More news to follow…

See more images from Tangled and other projects at mollyjarboe.com

Tangled is set in wooded areas where the natural landscape is photographed, then digitally altered.  Fantastically lit thickets and felled branches serve as backdrops to a cast of characters that seem to possess clues to secrets existing just beyond view.  No specific story line is spelled out, leaving the viewer free to wonder about and imagine a narrative of his or her own.

For me as the artist, Tangled represents the most recent chapter in an obsessive retelling of a story from my past about a child who has lost her favorite toy.  She imagines the toy has come to life and she longs to go out into the world in search of it. Tangled gets its inspiration from various children’s books and fairy tales, and seeks to awaken in its viewer the kind of unquestioning sense of adventure that can thrive in the imaginations of children.

Across my body of work I consistently explore themes of loss, memory, imagination and dreams.  Photography can freeze and eternalize what would be fleeting moments in time, but there is no mechanism for this in dreams. We rely on memory.  The moments and scenes represented in my work exist in a mysterious space somewhere between the real and the imagined.  There is no way to photograph dreams.

MJ