November 6-28, 2015
The Paradox of Time
The notion of time dances around the intangible. It is ever present and never-ending making us slaves to the ticking clock, to the waxing and waning of the moon, to the sway of the seasons. The great equalizer, it discriminates against no one offering exactly the same amount of hours, minutes and seconds in a day. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. But how we interact with this invisible dimension remains quite different for everyone.
So what is time? Is it a unit of measurement to account for the sequential passing of events? Is it finite? Is it indefinite? Does it account for the past? Present? Future? Or does it support all of these moments simultaneously? Or is it something we invented to create order and control over an otherwise chaotic string of happenings?
Eckhart Tolle proposes the truth of time lies in the now, the present. We never really truly experience time. It doesn’t occur all at once, but in slow steady progressions. And as an intangible, you can only truly experience what happens during a specific moment. As in the very moment happening right now. And then it’s gone.
But the present is constantly confused within the context of the past and future. It’s nearly impossible for us to “live in the now.” As creatures of incessant worry, regret, anticipation, and goal planning we constantly fluctuate from the past to the future and back again without a thought to what is actually occurring right now. How many times have you come across a photograph that suddenly takes you back 20 years to a point in the past, remembering details of that day long since forgotten? Questioned tomorrow’s purpose and what the next five years will entail? Pondered about an old flame while exiting out of the latest one?
I explore these ideas by trying to fully grasp this abstract notion of time using conceptual photography. How do we let this quantifiably unquantifiable unit of measurement dictate our days, our months, and our lives? Is it possible to live in the now? Are we so rooted in the past to see the day in front of us or even anticipate the future? Do we plan out so far in advance that we can’t see what’s clear as day right in front of us at this very moment?
Each image takes the viewer on a visual journey through space and time, searching for evidence of the intangible, pausing within the past, and glancing forward into the future while grounding you deeply in the present.
Marisa White received her BFA at the University of North Texas. Although a drawing and painting major, she found her passion with photography, capturing that spontaneous and real moment. A truth that sometimes is so fleeting, if only for a second. It wasn’t long before she began combining photographs with her paintings, creating conceptual mixed media collages.
Today, her work has evolved from the physical realm of collages to the digital world, focusing on the truth, darkness and depth of conceptual photography. Each piece is captured utilizing the camera, then digitally manipulated by compositing imagery and textures together for an overall painterly impression. Limited only by imagination and inspired by current happenings, literature, lyrics and emotions, she creates settings, often touched with nuances of surrealism. Her images are personal, sometimes autobiographical, sometimes not; but there is an element of relativity in each image that has a tendency to make the viewer stop and take pause.
