Dahlia, Photograph on paper, 36 x 36 in.
Houston based artist Cara Barer channels familiar iconography in her still life photographs. Dyed book pages from obsolete, discarded novels are ruffled and carefully arranged in circular forms, much like spiritual mandalas or blooming flowers. “Through my art, I document this and raise questions about the fragile and ephemeral nature of books and their future,” says Barer. “I arrive at some of my images by chance and others through experimentation. Without these two elements, my work would not flow easily from one idea to the next.” Transformed by color and arrangement, these books are equipped to take on new meanings as sculptural objects that are photographed and printed at a large scale - blurring the lines between object, sculpture, and photography. Through transformation and documentation, Barer meditates on obsolescence and the relevance of libraries and the printed page in this century.