As part of Sydney Art Month 2012 artists Jennifer Mehra and Tim Maslen bring a selection of their Mirrored and Native photographic series to Sydney.
Over the past ten years the duo have garnered wide acclaim in Europe and north America with their original use of photographic and sculpted mediums forming an insightful commentary on the relationship between humanity and nature.
In the Native series the artists capture urban settings free from human activity and populate them with representations of animal species that might inhabit these areas: Roe Deer appear to graze in London’s Canary Wharf, an American Eagle takes flight in Times Square. The artworks are not intended as militant anti-human statements, indeed their quiet inquisitiveness is gentle, but they do provoke us to consider what our collective, physical humanity’s relationship with nature is, and whether or not it is balanced.
In the Mirrored series Maslen & Mehra place reflective, human silhouette-shaped sculptures in wild, often bleak landscapes. As a fitting complement to the accompanying Native series in Mirrored we are asked to contemplate our own sense of alienation when faced with non-human contexts and reflect on the ephemerality of ourselves and our built environments.
Mirrored and Native are on display at Conny Dietzchold Gallery until April 21.
