Camouflage

1992

The State of Illinois Gallery, Chicago

Camouflage consisted of a series of computer animated ‘still lives’, rear projected into the window of the State of Illinois Art Gallery which is situated in the State of Illinois building in Chicago.
The images were visible from outside the gallery, playing to those using the mall on both a regular and irregular basis, and many who would never choose to enter the gallery itself.

Three 16mm loops played animation sequences non-simultaneously, each discreetly occupying a different space within the window. Challenging perceptions of what constituted ‘safe’ art in what was a climate of increasing censorship in the Arts (in the U.S.), Camouflage used an extremely familiar, almost generic image, fruit, and rhythmically transformed it into a succession of intimate throbs, morphs and peeling, playing upon the idea of hidden eroticism as being the prerogative/discovery of the ‘reader’ of the image.