EXHIBITION DETAILS

Borderline | Kerry Mansfield

2011

Kerry Mansfield, a San Francisco-based Photographer, has seen her artwork expand to a larger  photographic audience over the past several years. Her Borderline series is the culmination of seven  years of work exploring the synergy between indoor and outdoor spaces. While Kerry’s series  “Aftermath” departs from her traditional subject matter, the connection between space and body  remains. Aftermath chronicles her 2 year battle with breast cancer in a series of self portraits that  explore the meaning of the body as both a canvas and a distinctive moment in time.  

Recently both series have been featured in venues such as Fraction Magazine (Issue 8 + Issue 20),  PDN “Photo of the Day” online, Michael Mazzeo’s Inaugural Online Exhibition Show “Arbor”, The  Photo Review 2010 Annual, Photographer’s Forum 2010 Annual, third place in the Photo Center  Northwest Annual Exhibition, First and third Prize for the Julia Margaret Cameron Award (WPGA)  in the Professional Self- Portrait category, and most recently winning first prize for the WPGA  Storyteller competition. In August of 2011, Kerry will have her work highlighted in Buenos Aires,  Argentina for the JM Cameron exhibition. Currently her Borderline series is being exhibited as a solo  show at Wall Space Gallery in Seattle. 

BIOGRAPHY

Borderline 

When I first encountered what I now call, a Borderline image, I wasn't sure if the resulting negative  would tell the same story as my eyes. My camera responded with a defiant "Yes!" when contact  sheets revealed an entirely new world. I have been working on the series ever since then by using the  windows of my chosen home as a refractory device to merge the interior and exterior space onto one  like plane. The process involves shooting and printing only one negative. There are no double  exposures or digital manipulation of any kind. I have found the "analog" quality of this project to be  essential to its creation. I never set-up or adjust the circumstances that produce the images, I simply  hunt them down and capture them.  

Throughout this exploration I have found an often-harmonious union between man and nature.  Mirrored, reflected and superimposed, the elements became interchangeable. The sky became  ceilings. Trees became walls. Ground became floor. Air became windows. In the resulting  photographs, the windows themselves vanish entirely while the outside pours inside and vice versa.  Once a structure is built, we then believe ourselves separate or "safe" from the so-called chaotic  influences of the natural world. What I have found is that, in many respects, what we really believe is  an illusion of separateness. And we've chosen this as our reality.  

There is a place in between the hard lines of walls, ceilings and furniture and the botanical design that  envelops the outside world where a seamless merge occurs and creates a third reality. One can no  longer distinguish whether the wall in the image is concrete or if it merely floats through as apparition  of itself in reflection. The union of these real and reflected images doesn’t seek to define themselves  and separate from each other. Nor do they seek to meld the two into one. They seek to explore the  fine line in between - they simply exist, squarely on The Borderline.