Daily Archives: October 9, 2013

Rox Gallery : Stories and Optical Illusions

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Ever walk into those elevators with mirrors on all 4 sides and see yourself infinitely from every angle. It can be slightly creepy, and I never thought that all the reflections could create an image such as this. The symmetry and aesthetic quality from this man simply standing in one place is quite remarkable.

The whole photograph serves as a sort of optical illusion – a photograph of initial light that descends into a three-dimensional darkness. Breaking it down, one aspect of this photo is the naked man surrounded by a bright light and white walls. The color white, the brightness of the photo, and the nude man are often symbols of purity. However, looking to either side of the reflections, the image of the man gets infinitely smaller until he is submerged into this black square, which I believe tells us a story of the mans change in his life, towards darkness. The color black is symbolic of the hidden and secretive. From this, I can assume that the man slowly becomes immersed by his lies and potential problems. I also see another perspective that contains a biblical allegory. The naked man symbolizes Adam and the start of the world and this black box symbolizes original sin. However, these are just two potential aspects of understanding this picture; but with art this vague, a lot is left to interpretation.

Rox Gallery – “I Build A Pyramid”

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This series of black and white photos in the Rox gallery caught my attention. The first photo consists of a man placing a big rock on the floor. I assume he was in Egypt, since there are pyramids behind him in the background and he is standing on sand. The next photo shows more rocks on the floor. What confused me was the third photo, since there seemed to be less rocks compared to the previous photo. It didn’t make sense to me; the series of photos should be showing the process in which the man is building a pyramid, so there should be more rocks on the sand as the order of the photos increases. Where did the other rocks go? Did the photographer intentionally do this? The fourth photo shows the man placing the last rock on the top of the pile of rocks he had made. The fifth photo shows a complete pyramid made of rocks; the pyramid is a bit tilted and uneven but we can see that it is a pyramid. We see the man in the distance walking away. The sixth photo is a closer image of the pyramid made with rocks.
I really have no idea what the photographer is trying to convey here. To me, looking at the series of photos in detail, especially at the second and third photo, the photos showed how progress and life in general can be very difficult. We don’t what happened to the rest of the rocks in the third picture but I think it represents how in life, even though we try very hard, there will always be obstacles that keep us from reaching our goal. In the series of pictures, the man continues to build his pyramid. I believe this represents our determination to keep going on even though there are many obstacles and problems we must face. Finally, the man finishes his pyramid. Even though the pyramid is made with uneven rocks and we can see how imperfect it is through its structure, we can see that it still stands. To me, this shows that determination and the will to keep going on will get us to our goal; even if we end up tired and broken at the end, we know that we have still succeeded. I also found it interesting how the photographer was able to capture the man’s small pyramid next to the big, majestic ones of Egypt. To others, his pyramid may be insignificant compared to the actual pyramids behind it but I think the man is satisfied, since he reached his own personal goal of building a pyramid of rocks.