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Exhibit & Art Talk: A PLEA FOR TENDERNESS
October 29 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm MDT
EXHIBIT & ART TALK
A PLEA FOR TENDERNESS
Thursday, October 29th | 7:00pm – 8:30pm
free
In this project Eli Craven aims to position the viewer as a collaborator or partner in the physical experience of the work. Viewers are invited to alter photographic compositions through a series of kinetic elements and reflective materials, including sliding wood panels, hinged doors, and movable peepholes. The viewer must engage and activate the framing components to reveal the photographic image, potentially provoking the desire to see what is hidden within. Participation is integral to this project, with entire scenes rendered incomplete without the viewer’s touch and imagination filling the gaps and visualizing what lies beneath the surface of the photograph, or behind the veil.
Although the works exist within the canon of photography, they are sculptural objects that utilize the photograph as part of their construction. Eli’s work started with an obsession for photography and its materials and that fixation remains at the core of his practice.
BIOGRAPHY
Eli Craven (IN) was raised in Idaho. He has always felt an undeniable relationship between the subconscious choices in his artwork and the environment in which he was raised. In his childhood home, magazines and movies were censored, select films and TV shows were forbidden, sexuality and death were seldom discussed. The power images hold was discovered through scrutinizing forbidden magazine collections, daytime soap operas, and movies. The impetus of his practice resides in this desire to see, only to discover nothing shocking. Instead, seemingly mundane imagery is isolated and fragmented, presenting a narrative exploring the image’s role in processes of socialization.