Capturing the Surreal

Capturing the Surreal highlights the work of three artists inventing bright and new realities. Vibrant, color-forward, and an explosion of energy, each artist’s work is a commentary on society that begins with the question: what is real and what isn’t? Through photography, artificial reality, and animation, the artists evoke dream-like fantasies that intertwine their lived experiences with their interaction between the physical and the virtual world. Immersive and powerful, their work dives into a space of light and color that threads humorous narratives of the visually and conceptually surreal. Kelli Williams and Charmaine Caire bring puppets, dolls, and figurines to life in their photography, Williams with a certain familiarity with the so-present social media space, Caire in the absurd scenarios she stages, both existing in the in-between of reality and fiction. Eva Wu's potent and saturated use of color and textures extorts intimate otherworldly dimensions reminding us we are somewhere idyllic, somewhere unfamiliar.