Erica Baum

Erica Baum - Play

In "Play" Baum explores the narrative potential of paper doll figures, treated as blank players in an imaginary performance. The 30x40 inch black and white photographs depict the reverse side of cardboard cut-out paper doll figures, some undetached and others already perforated. Stripped of their clothing and facial expression, the viewer is left only with outlines of each figure to construct a narrative. The ominous tones of these silver gelatin prints lend each work a patina of unrest and suspicion, suggesting an undercurrent of dark emotion. The exhibition itself becomes a theater with figures on the verge of enacting multiple possible performances. Baum remarks: “Viewers become members of an audience, and the space between the realized and unrealized dramatic unfoldings becomes both a play and a conceptual intermission.”
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