Quinn Gorbutt: The Time is Going to Pass Anyway
In his new body of black and white archival pigment prints, Gorbutt plays with the illusion of physical space and the inevitability of flatness inherent in the photographic medium. Using discarded materials found near his studio in Virginia, Gorbutt creates elaborate installations of wood, paint and collage that serve the sole purpose of being photographed. Text is embedded in the constructed landscape, present from the building materials themselves, penned by the artist, or borrowed from song lyrics. Using a combination of film photography and digital compositing, Gorbutt isolates areas of focus and stitches them back together to create these enigmatic, hyper-rendered images.
Gorbutt relates his practice to that of a puzzle maker, carefully crafting each element with deliberate precision, each move a response to the last. The viewer becomes the assembler, visually unpacking the puzzle from a singular vantage point, living through the puzzle maker’s decisions in real time. Influenced by the work of his mentor Abelardo Morell, Gorbutt plays with subtle optical illusions based on how our brain processes imagery through pre-existing notions of scale and space. The camera serves as a metaphor for a fixed state of mind. The work challenges the viewer to question the relative truth of each image and the limitations of the individual perspective.
