Vessel, 2014, Registered duplex archival pigment ink on transparency film, backlit LED, 28 x 22 inches. Photo: Natalie Fleming.

 

Frani Evedon’s Vessel is as beautiful as it is enigmatic. Is it a spine? Or, as the name suggests, a vessel? The thin tendrils of orange and purple summons our gaze, but it is uncertain what it draws our attention towards. Initially, Evedon was hesitant to colorize her work in the series Passing Through, but the subtle traces of color she added here are emotionally evocative. Vessel makes us question what it means to be ill and shows us how to find beauty in our imperfectly ill bodies—beautifully ill.

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Frani Evedon (b. 1951). Lakota shaman Lame Deer said, “We are only a physical manifestation of what is real.” This existential statement implies that we, and everything that exists on our plane of events, are physical and non-physical simultaneously as well as profoundly linked to our collective condition. Frani Evedon’s work represents her personal journey to address the notions of synchronicity, life transitions, and physical deterioration in relation to the process of global decline. Recently, she has been exploring these concepts through the manipulation of MRIs and X-rays.

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Although this work is not overtly political, it is covertly so. Current events have reached a level of urgency that seems to threaten our very existence. These three works from the Passing Through series are also landscapes, reminiscent of our deteriorating planetary body, hastened by environmental neglect, global violence, disease, and now by the frightening decisions of this new administration.

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For more information: http://www.evedonphotography.com