Hannah Whitaker

Where visual art demands technical mastery as a means to an end, for Hannah Whitaker, it's no less a means to upend that end. True to character, "Lifelike," her second show at Marinaro, sees image, lighting, and design object collide.

As a starting point for the exhibition, Whitaker turned to single-exposure digital images for a new series of unaltered photographs that center on a female model.  For these meticulously executed scenes, Whitaker employed neon-hued lighting to illuminate the woman's various poses—sometimes only revealing her silhouette, sometimes projecting geometric patterns of light selectively across her form.

A sculptural counterpart to these scenes manifests in five functional lamps—Whitaker's first foray into design. The fixtures derive their sleek shapes from interlocking wood panels assembled into eclectic geometric configurations. Each visible surface is emblazoned with photographic imagery, printed directly onto the wood. Throughout, intersections and dualities at play abound, blurring separation representation from reality.