Robert Calafiore | Seeing in the Dark

This past Friday, Pictura was pleased to host the opening reception and artist talk with Robert Calafiore on his series ​‘Seeing in the Dark’.

Robert Calafiore’s photographs act as a gateway into a hidden world, revealing scenes that could not be taken in by the human eye in real time. Because of his unusual processes, these views will only exist in the prints before you. The colors are reversed, or rendered in the negative, and the resulting prints are saturated and dazzling.

In a deep sea dive, the thrill of bioluminescence is more fully realized with descent, as the waters become darker and the world less familiar. Calafiore’s pictures emerge into view like this, as found treasures. You may admire them for the ordinary household objects that they are, or you can forget that fact.

They are luminescent jewels, or glass creatures with a glowing pulse. They are Poseidon’s trophies, or artifacts of unknown significance from an alien world. There is a red, all-seeing eye, a long altar of reliquaries from a lost religion, structures of a strange new architecture. As our eyes adjust to Calafiore’s uncommon visual language, we begin to see through the dark, even plunging into the deeps of our own imaginations.

-Mia + Lisa



Photos from the opening and artist talk: