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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Eight: Using symbols and metaphors to express meaning > Disappearance, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2005
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16-JUL-2005

Disappearance, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2005

A woman walks below the long colonnade outside of Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts – the early morning sunlight grazing her arm, hand, and foot. The rest of her is enveloped in darkness. In an instant she was gone. Since I was exposing on the exterior of the building, the shadow is entirely black, swallowing the woman who is unknowingly walking into it. Her arm, hand and foot are the last parts I saw of her. Such shadows can symbolize the unknown, a mystery, and a void. Someone entering that void seems to be lost forever. For all practical purposes, this woman is in the process of vanishing.

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Phil Douglis26-Aug-2005 04:57
I know how much your images draw on abstraction caused by shadows, Kal. Thank you for commenting on this one, and I am fascinated by your response to it. You are right -- this image does indeed ask questions and seek answers. I like your viewpoint. It made me wonder how this image might look in black and white, so I tried it. I will keep it in color -- the natural color of the building is simply overwhelming, and speaks of the Santa Fe of the imagination. And that is what this image is all about. A stimulus to the imagination.
Kal Khogali26-Aug-2005 02:22
Abstraction through darknesss as you say is one of the things I love to do Phil, and here you do it wonderfully. As Monique says this is a timeless place, but with a simple glimpse, you create the contradiction and the question. A timeless place, yet the woman looks so modern. We are left wondering who is out of place, the woman or the building.
Phil Douglis22-Jul-2005 17:56
Good point, Mo. Massed dark shadows are not only symbols of mystery and the unknown, but they can also be interpreted as suspended time. What we can see of her represents the here and now. But where she is going represents infinity -- time no longer matters because it is forever.
monique jansen22-Jul-2005 12:42
Also you get a glimpse of current times in the shoes and dress of the woman/person, yet she is stepping into a timeless place
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