Foto©Jorit Aust

Concave Insights

For centuries, artists have used optical instruments to aid them in their drawings and paintings. Such devices include the camera obscura, the camera lucida, but also, more simply, the mirror.

While a mirror appears to reveal the world around us, we must keep in mind that it is not an exact reflection, but rather a reversed image. The concave mirror, in turn, makes its illusory nature even more transparent, as it challenges our orientation while also blurring and distorting our reflection.

Such a mirror urges us to turn inwards and consider how we perceive reality. In a series of experimental and process-based drawings, the concave mirror was used as a drawing aid and philosophical tool to probe into the nature of perception. Meanwhile, the viewer is also encouraged to make their make their own perception-examining-drawings with the mirror as their starting point.

Catalina Escalona, born 1993, is a Chilean-American artist-researcher and computer scientist in training. Working primarily in the fields of drawing, printmaking, photography, and experimental animation, she investigates topics in the philosophy of perception. She previously studied German literature and art history in New York City, Boulder (Colorado), Berlin, and Vienna.

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Concave Insights