Photography is no longer the faithful representation of reality it was once thought to be. Photographs today resemble a hall of mirrors, each one distorting reality more than the last. Which mirror/photograph reveals the truth? None, actually, and this is what makes the subject of the ‘real’ such hotly contested ground. Conversely, this is why photography is the ideal tool to subvert our concept of reality.
Lori Nis and Lisa Stinner photograph staged settings, using the diorama model as a starting point. Their message can be understood as Don’t accept things passively; don’t believe everything you see, hear, or read; think for yourself.
Lori Nix and Lisa Stinner comment on the use of so-called realistic representation within the economy of high capitalism. Nix creates her own small worlds that challenge our concept of the ‘real’, while Stinner takes pictures of already existing constructions. It seems that making these images is a way for them to comprehend their world, because “making” is a way of thinking and understanding. Nix and Stinner appear concerned about the world they live in, and the role of interpretation.
-Barbara Gilbert
Lori Nix’s constructed environments form the basis of her photographs. Cardboard, plaster and paint are employed to create highly detailed dioramas that once photographed, blur the line between truth and illusion. Her photographs toy with romantic notions of landscape with lush, rich color and theatrical lighting, magnifying a sense of isolation and melancholy. Nix has exhibited extensively at reputable institutions such as the California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA, White Columns in New York City, in Houston, TX and the George Eastman House in Rochester, NY. Lori Nix has received several awards, grants and residencies in the US.
Since graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Photography, Stinner’s work has also been featured in several exhibitions, locally, nationally and internationally among them a solo exhibition at PLATFORM Gallery, Winnipeg. She has received numerous grants and scholarships, and most recently was awarded a Visual Arts grant from the Manitoba Arts Council. Her work has been written about in Border Crossings magazine, the exhibition monograph vague terrain published by PLATFORM gallery, the Winnipeg Free Pressand Warehouse, a journal of the Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba. Stinner’s photographs have also been highlighted in several juried publications including Carte Blanche (2006) and Flash Forward (2006, 2007). Stinner obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Manitoba where she has been teaching photography as a sessional instructor.