Still / Live

Still/Live considers how contemporary artists are reimagining the still life tradition. The artists represented in the exhibition delve into the history of the genre to explore three themes: time, portraiture and trompe l’oeil (hyper-real images that “fool the eye”). Rather than working in paint, they use new media, video and photography to make the millennia-old still life tradition newly relevant today. Many of these artists play with the still life’s temporal dimensions by examining the tension between film, which unfolds over time, and the still life, which seems frozen in time. For others, the still life is a powerful vehicle for exploring their own identities, or for political and social commentary.

As the real and virtual worlds become more and more intertwined, artists have also found new meaning in the intensified illusionism of trompe l’oeil. The works on view transcend the genre’s traditional association with paintings of fruits and flowers. They demonstrate that, rather than an historical artifact, the still life is a dynamic and enduring medium of expression.