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Eva Lewarne, Suit
digital print
http://www3.sympatico.ca/eve.designs

REALITY UNMASKED

Feeling like I had to some extent exhausted myself in the painting media, I turned to digitally-manipulated work for inspiration. The smaller and faster media allowed me tremendous freedom of expression and lots of spontaneity. After all you could always press delete. Bringing together elements of my previous paintings, photos and directly painting on a computer pad, a theme started to emerge, that I could blow-up on arches paper, using the giclee print-method or present as a glossy photo.

This series called "Reality Unmasked" represents for me an intimate, yet formal look at the moment. The moment being both a social, personal affair and something mysterious and almost religious. I tried to create a tension between  a hidden erotic energy and spirituality, symbolized by death masks.

The figures are almost still life, caught in a moment, WAITING TO LIVE OR TO DIE, not having yet decided which? There is a sense of "aloneness" about them, social isolation because of their unique perception, as symbolized by their heads. Yet there is a certain nostalgia for something...more concrete.  They are juxtaposed between two worlds and frozen there in time, for the moment.

The mood is created by the stark colours of either black and white or blue. Even the occasional addition of a rusty red only emphasizes the dry, aridity of the scene.

Stephen Perloff, the editor of "Photo Review", in New York, wrote about the photo,  "Suit": "Eva, That's the most interesting suit since Mapplethorpe's Man in the Polyester Suit. We'd be glad to see your work."

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