Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

The precarious, ever shifting balance of mind/body, both cognitive and emotional, is simultaneously fascinating and unnerving. Our perceptions, and thus our reality, are dynamic, restricted by our anatomy and subject to the perturbations of our physiology caused by the interactions of internal and external stimuli. My deep interest in the mind/body, at once fragile and resilient, arises from my work with clients in psychotherapy, psychiatric emergency services and social work; over 20 years of Vipassana meditation practice; and my personal struggles with loss, grief, pain, fear and depression, i.e., life.

In this body of work I try to convey the challenge of finding equanimity - perhaps even beauty - during times of disorientation, perceived crisis. Each of the prints is made from a single image shot through glass or water such that reflections on the surface intermingle with objects on the other side of the glass or water. This, I felt, was the closest means to capturing distortions organic to one’s perception.

The process of creating this work itself involved the cycle of finding/losing/ refinding equanimity throughout the inevitable successes and failures. It represents the challenge of finding balance in virtually everything we do - the Buddhist “middle way.”

Suzanne Artemieff Prints

Suzanne Artemieff Prints