Karine Laval
Altered States
Bonni Benrubi Gallery
41 E. 57th Street 13th FL
4/18- 5/24
Opening reception Thursday April 18, 6-8 PM
For her 4th solo exhibition at Bonni Benrubi Gallery, the Brooklyn-based French artist Karine Laval will present a selection of new photographs as well as a video installation that marks the gallery’s first foray into moving images. The title of the exhibition references different states of transformation such as physical transformation and distortion, altered states of consciousness and perception, mythological metamorphosis, but it also evinces the transformative power of the camera. Laval continues to explore the vagaries of subjective perception and challenges the way we see by combining performance and the mechanics of photography itself (light, perspective, chemistry and optics). She tests the limits of the photographic medium by using water as a distorting lens and choosing a stark color palette – the result of her signature chemical processing of the film – to generate images that oscillate between representation and abstraction and blur the boundary between photography and painting.