Henderson Lee Gallery

Vlad Spicanovic

More than ever before, we live in a world saturated and shaped by images, by a fascination with capturing and sharing unexpected moments. In this context of perpetual visual production, of screen culture, there is a need to revisit perception itself -- to see again, and anew, seeing itself. This interest in questioning how we see and ‘how images feel’ is at the core of this body of work.  PARA-OPTICAL explores the psychology, and para-psychologies, of looking, as well as underlying shifts in perception between observation and imagination, the real and the abstract.  In its limitless malleability, in the ways it affords the image and sense-making, digital photography allows such inquiry, particularly in the context of encountering, of wandering in and through, new and unfamiliar places.

These images are visual annotations of urban and material cultures, captured in Hangzhou, Berlin, and Dubai. As I walked through these cities, their city blocks, buildings, and parks, I was presented with instances of urban splendour that felt familiar and distant, precious and poetic.  I have been always interested in the cities and their architectural identities. My father was an architect, and I learned from him to relish how built urban structures can coalesce with natural spaces, like parks and gardens.

The images of Berlin were guided by my reading of Walter Benjamin’s book, Berlin Childhood Around 1900. Benjamin’s stories about the city in which he grew up, his memorable addresses and places, offered some initial coordinates for my walking and picture taking. Dubai, on the other hand, presented the materiality and sensuality of its souks in contrast to its futuristic, hyper-capitalist architecture and the palpable energy of the Persian Gulf.  And the photographs of Hangzhou unfurl the unexpected beauty of its West Lake, a spiritual oasis of the city that has inspired many artists. 

These works are more than visual representations of the once-seen: they were made with a particular method, one that I have developed from my practice as a painter. I call it ‘para-optical inversion,’ a stitched juxtaposition of two intersecting views of a single scene, the actual and the reflected: the one view registering how we see, the other embodying the ways in which such scenes are imagined and understood by the mind. This mode of visual analysis conjures playful shifts in perception of reality and illusion. This is how these works act as catalysts for imagining the para-opticality of art.

Artist Biography (PDF)