REFLACTION LOOP
Leah Hewson
Video, Digital Images
Much of what we think and feel is not under our conscious control with 95% of brain activity occurring in the unconscious space. One third of the brain is devoted to vision and we believe what we see to be reality, mostly without question. Our visual system has only evolved to a certain capacity for our survival, but it is at this peripheral point where visual illusions occur.
Hewson’s work is about finding ways in which we can access, explore and celebrate this space.
The video animation is created from a single photograph taken from a series, of an installation piece, ‘Reflaction’. The image has been digitally manipulated using colour extraction so that the static image appears to continuously move. ‘Reflaction Loop’ is designed to capture the viewer into an intense and immobilised state of hypnosis activating the unconscious brain. The droning sound and pace of the illusion of movement can be perceived as perhaps something meditative, relaxing or uneasy depending on the viewer. The endless looped pattern of image and sound requires the viewer to make a decision to disengage, hurling them back into conscious thought.
The Artist
Hewson's artistic career began with a First-Class BA(Hons) degree in Fine Art at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Dublin in 2010. Since then, she has accomplished four solo exhibitions, the most notable of these were 'Ammo Veil' at The Hillsboro Fine Art gallery in July 2018 and ‘Scintilla’ at The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin in February 2017. This was the culmination of work produced during a six-month residency at The Royal Hibernian Academy School.
Hewson is accredited with the Elizabeth Fitzpatrick Travel Bursary Award 2018, has been shortlisted for the Hennessy Craig Bienniel Award to win €20,000 and won the ‘Special Prize for Contemporary Art’ at the ‘Biennial of Humour and Satire in Art’, Bulgaria (2017).
Her work continues to be internationally collected by private collectors in New York, Australia, Germany, France, Norway, and Spain. Other collections include The Trinity College Dublin History of Art collection, The Office of Public Works, Dublin, The Law Society of Ireland, and the Microsoft Collection.
In 2015 Hewson was given the opportunity to work with the world renowned abstract artist Sean Scully in New York and New Jersey which had a profound effect on her practice which has developed into abstraction.
Hewson is currrently on a six month residency at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn New York.
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