If you’re a reader of Lenscratch (as you should be!), you’ll recognize Sarah Stankey’s name; she has worked as an exhibition editor and contributing writer there since 2011. It’s through Lenscratch that I discovered Sarah’s work and I was immediately taken with it, contacting Sarah even though her project, Dichotomy, was then yet to be completed. The series is varied yet cohesive, each beautiful, simply composed photograph exploring different aspects of nature as encountered by humans (also, the sequencing is awesome on her website). Scrolling through the images, I found myself thinking “this one’s real, this one’s fake, real, fake,” and I stopped and thought how many of the scenes depicted are ambiguous. Whether an experience of nature is “real” or “fake” can be ambiguous in the same way.
From the artist’s statement: Captivated with the natural world around me, the majority of my work revolves around nature and its abilities to expose its ever-changing wonder. Curiosity inspires my work as I consider humans co-existence with nature and how animals are integrated into our lives every which way we look. I often question the authenticity of natural environments because the line between animal and manmade worlds has become foggy.
From “Dichotomy”
Visit artist's site: sarahjstankey.com
Posted November 13th, 2014
