2005 - OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

"Objects in Mirror Are Closer than they Appear" explores the process of growth and awareness leading to liberation, following the principles of Buddhist philosophy. It is an examination life’s vicissitudes and the struggle to find freedom from suffering, illustrated here though a repetitive cycle of experience whereby the subject must resolve rejection by her love interest. The sequence represents the challenge to transcend suffering via the obstacles and challenges we face in life, resolved in this instance through a process of detachment. This principle applies to all things material, interpersonal, status-oriented or any manner in which we might define ourselves.

The subject in the photo-roman is cast into parallel lives which alternate throughout the story, one of poverty and the other of wealth. Living out the same experience regardless of her circumstances, she is born innocent and mild, and after exploring her environment, takes on an increasingly mechanized resemblance to the automobile. Also a machine, this becomes the focus of her attachment, symbolizing a growing process of identification.

She is suddenly and unexpectedly rejected from her object of desire, and seeks to destroy that which caused her pain. She eventually begins to feel the searing effects of her destructive rampage reflected upon herself, and must choose an alternate reaction to halt the karmic process of cause and effect, which draws her into a repetitive cycle of experience designed to teach her lessons of transcendence.