Wall Works

Like truth, memory is multivalent. By deliberately obscuring our view through the use of frosted mylar or sheer curtains, O’Hara reminds us to refocus and to look again. Bright, colorful patterns become pastel, and sharp landscapes dreamy. Her use of shadow boxes set ush with the wall’s surface, both collapse and expand space like an accordion book. As if a master magician, she slyly coaxes us to second guess where we are by lining the boxes with the same wallpaper of the wall, but at a different scale. To reassure ourselves, we take one step forward and then two back; a physical double take. Two simultaneous (mis)understandings occur—what we see and what we know. In the same way we acknowledge that our recollections are reinvented over time, we see both as true.

Candice Smith Corby
Artist
Director, Carole Calo Gallery, Stonehill College