Jenny Metz

Although I did not make it to the SMP talk I did go into the gallery multiple times while it was open. The Art I was most drawn to was that of Jenny Metz. She created three pieces of wall art fro multiple photos. From a distance, walking into the gallery I saw the images and from this distance they just seemed normal. They seemed like places she had just photographed, cut up and layered back into their original landscape. It was not until I got closer that I realized that the large scale landscapes were not actually just repeat images of the true landscape, just broken up. But they are actually very zoomed in single photos of a space then put back together again like a puzzle. At this point I was like this is so awesome why didn't i ever think of this. Then I kicked myself in the butt because Chris Saah showed me an artist that does something very similar to this. I cannot remember the artists name, but he takes photos of a space then puzzles them back together layering them as he goes. But the catch is that with this freedom of multiple images, he recreates that space and alters it so that it is not an exact representation of the actual space. While remembering this artist and looking back up at Jenny's art i realized, she did the same thing.

Two of the images are very familiar places to St. Mary's students, route five and up by Kent hall. When I first looked at them they seem unaltered, but after remembering the artist Chris showed me, I relaized she did the same thing. These very familiar images I was standing in front of instantly became unfamiliar, they had been deconstructed and reconstructed in a different way. The route five image made it look more like a fish eye effect. in the foreground you see the gaurd rail and grass so close up that you would have to kneel down in real life to see them this detailed. But then you see the guard rail shoot back in the direction behind you and in front of you, In real life this could never happen but in this image it has. You are seeing far more then you would ever see in real life just in one image.

The image near kent hall is far more deconstructed and then reconstructed in an altered way again. The two main trees appear to be almost touching in the sky. It gives me that feeling like you get when you lay down on a grassy patch and just look up. The trees seem to fall inward toward you at an angle that is unrealistic.

As an artist I have learned to look at the image first then read the description so that is what I did this time. In her description she talks about how she deconstructed the subjects and "calling attention to two types of vision: the way the camera lens sees and the way the human eye sees" these two things are often compared a lot in the photography world. The camera lense sees the world as we see it. Just capturing the light reflected off subjects and seen by our eyes and the camera's film. Jenny talks about how the public has become accustomed to seeing the world in photographs and that photos are proof, proof of the world. This idea is brought up a lot in my art classes recently. The issue that an event is not true and did not happen unless it was photographed. I think this is because of how much we are bombarded with news, ads and social networking these days.

The aesthetic that Jenny's pieces create is amazing and they make the viewer see different things as the get closer and pan the art work. She did an amazing job and has sparked many ideas in my head for future projects.