Orla Meehan

Orla Meehan

Grade 12, The Urban School

realityprisms

Photography

2021-2022

$40

This series of film photographs is presented in vintage frames, a representation of the polarities of my state of mind. While I am on most days a perfectionist, film allowed me to let go through trusting the unpredictability of the process of in-camera double exposure, long exposures (up to 3 hours) and the fact that there was no way to see the outcome until days later.

Due to my rather intangible artistic process, the work has come to speak to the duality and depth of emotions in my life, and the way in which they worm together, blending to form a new pigment that I have no name for. My reality bends in the present and in the past all the while time introduces new tints of emotion and it’s frankly confusing. This series represents the way that my mind often feels like fog, a transparent wisp that hangs slightly out of reach on some cool evenings. The fishbowl mirror speaks to the way my reality distorts as I look at it out from where I stand, a romanticized separation. My tongue has no idea what the forces are that are at play in this artwork but I resonate myself within these images and that is with a complete certainty.