Wanderings in the Mermaid’s Palace

This exhibition features large shadowbox diptychs that take the viewer to strange and magical places. Photographs printed on silk organza and layered over another image on paper, canvas, or fabric, sometimes with additional collage material, work together to create a filmy, three-dimensional effect. The unexpected spatial distortions and the visual leaps from left to right paired panels, encourage viewers to set aside their previous expectations about photography and to participate in strange visual and conceptual wandering, even to a mermaid’s palace.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Kirsten Hoving is a photographer and multimedia artist from Charleston, SC, whose art balances on the edge between fact and fiction. Hers is an art of transcendence, and she frequently combines photographs with unusual processes, materials, and presentations to evoke quiet dreams and half-remembered tales. Using unexpected viewpoints, three-dimensionality, and kinetic elements, she expands photography’s decisive moments into visionary states of wonder. Our imagination, she believes, is what makes us human, and our ability to see the world through metaphors, stories, and poetic allusions connects our minds to our hearts.

Over the last fifteen years, Hoving has shown her work in galleries around the world and has published several books of her work, including Svala’s Saga, a project done in collaboration with photographer Emma Powell. With a PhD in art history from Columbia University, Hoving had a long career as a professor and scholar of modern art, with books and articles on many topics, including Surrealist photography and the assemblage of Joseph Cornell. Those interests heavily influence her creative practice.