Unreal, surreal.

How much is really real...?

You may recognize this image from the Niagara Blog page. It's an image of a leaf created by artist Pearl Paul. the reason I love this photo so much is that nothing in it is really as it appears. That's not the moon in the background, nor is this even outside. It's a hallway of a university and it's not even autumn. The leaf is tissue paper and dye, the tree is just a bunch of dead twigs... This image makes me think that art imitates life, but often the things we love more about life are taken for granted. The simple idea that we can recreate a seemingly mundane scene, in the visual poetry of the plastic arts, is proof that, as people, we yearn to imitate our surroundings. It's a rare occasion that we find ourselves staring at something this redundant in real life but, as art, I couldn't take my eyes off it. 
This photo takes me to places in my mind that, though not entirely fictional, do not exist; but are simply constructs of a different reality. So is this real? Is anything that we peer at through our monitors and lenses really real...how much of anything must be altered by the human spirit before what's authentic is no longer natural. Everything is real, it's the limits of reality that we must keep defining...altering...realizing.


Cheers,
-D-