Explorations of Nothing > Still Life, One Object > Peale’s book

Still Life, One Object is an ongoing photographic series, based on historic still life paintings from which I select one object and re-present it, divorced from the original source. A singular object, such as a piece of fruit or a book, is isolated and then photographed against a white background, casting a shadow. Afterwards the object is removed from the final photograph.

In each instance, the original source painting is referenced only in the photograph’s title, such as Picasso’s Lemon, which refers to Picasso’s 1936 painting Still Life with Lemon and Oranges (the object I select is always one which also appears in the title of the original artwork). Other classic still lives by such artists as Cezanne, Gauguin, and Monet are also used as source material in the series.  

Throughout the history of realism in painting, the shadow has played a pivotal role in creating the illusion of three-dimensionality. Here, illusion become fact, as the actual shadow of the silhouette is photographed, lending significance to the presence of shadows as inseparable components of reality. The play between reality and abstraction is at the forefront of this project.