Title
Creation Date
2017
Preview
Medium
archival inkjet print
Description
Dimensions: 18 x 12 inches
This work is part of the series entitled Shrouded.
Rights
© Kathie Jo Manning, 2017.
Exhibit Images
Keywords
black and white, death, life, ritual, film, photography
Artist Statement
There is a single thread that connects every living thing. It’s the only common factor. It’s the only universal truth. It is shrouded in ritual and mystery. It demands existential examination, thoughtful meditation, and uncomfortable reverence. In this series, I explore the common thread as an end to our sense of self: a death.
All of the photographs consist largely of a black abyss with abstracted human forms coming in and out of it. The overall aesthetic of blackness is meant to be representative of the mysterious nature of life and death. Moreover, the blackness is also representative of a vacuum or a void. The void can be both ancient and futuristic. It is all knowing and all consuming. It is not linear or fathomable. It is something one can only understand once the thin line between living and dying is disrupted; it is here that one becomes consumed.
Hands reaching out of the void and grasping onto a shroud or the human form are indicative of the idea that death is where the sensual nature of life ends and immersion into the void begins. This serves to anthropomorphize the void itself, and to reiterate the idea that this void is the common thread throughout all of humanity. These images serve to act as a visual representation of the dawn of humanity and therefore the fruition of the common thread. A male and a female, shrouded together, both in life and now in death- the Adam and Eve of the underworld.