Wow! This is an awesom and shocking picture, Jennifer!
Phil Douglis told me about your work and I came here and the first imagery I chose was this one...
What a contradiction here.. You related this shot with the science world.. and what we can see here is a human being that lost its humanity to become a piece of wood, an object, a dead object.. it made me remember those images of the Christian crucifixión. In a way you are showing us that for the science the human is no more a living matter but just a piece of something, an object with no life at all. Also, this dead human body is the consequence of the scientist conception: a body with no soul.. an empty body.
The lack of mouth is what shocked me the most.. now the human lost his ability of speak, of using the word to communicate his inner world, his soul... he becomes a ghost in a living world...
the texture and the craks enhace this devastating feeling: nothing left of the before life... close eyes, no mouth, no ears, close nose, corporal rigidity, lack of colors.. the symbols of a dead body...
Congratulations on this superb work!!!
****I really like this one, Jen. It is unlike you. Your images almost always speak of life, but with this, and a few of your dead plant pictures, speaks of death. I told you earlier how I felt about this image. If you use it, you can put this in your abstraction gallery as well, because it is the closeup vantage point that makes it work.
Quite shocking -- we are looking death in the face. What is even more shocking to me is when I consider this image in light of most of your other work, which is lyrical and beautiful and pretty. This is the opposite side. It is a grim mask made up of the rings of life. It stares at us silently and blindly. It is inevitable. And we must face it.
