Featured Artist:
Iris Spellings

We all realize that just because something cannot be seen does not mean it does not exist.  Thoughts are an example of such things.  Many of the nuances in the photographs of Iris Spellings were not perceptible to the human eye before they appeared in the photograph.  A student of the Ageless Wisdom from an early age, she takes photographs to reveal and illustrate these unseen realities.  The images become a record of a particular moment projected and illumined by a combination of energies, and documented on film.

Not concerned with the personality, as in the traditional sense of portraiture, she seeks to go beyond it and illumine that which is within, that which humanity shares and has in common—the heart, soul, or essence of the human being and its qualities.

Spellings does not visualize a particular image and try to illustrate it.  Rather, her work involves a process not unlike meditation where she is open to impression and seeks to work as a vehicle for, and cooperatively with, the hierarchical and devic kingdoms. She says that the most successful images occur when the combined energies—hers, and of those working with her in that particular focused moment—are allowed to unobstructedly manifest onto the film.  She adds that it can be a surprise upon seeing the developed photograph, as it often takes time to recognize the image for what it is, instead of what was anticipated based upon her mental impressions.

Spellings received a BFA from John Herron School of Art, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana in painting and sculpture.  Her early work incorporated photography and eventually evolved to where the process reversed—where the photograph incorporated painting and sculpture.  Having moved to New York City in 1980, she began working with Polaroid film because of it’s unique color palate and became one of the few artists to receive grants from the Polaroid Corporation to experiment with new films and to use their large 20” x 24” camera.  Her work has been exhibited around the world and is in numerous public and private collections, including the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York.  She currently lives and works in New York City.

These photographs, which have evolved over the years, symbolize that time period when we drift between sleep and awake and when we penetrate deeper planes of consciousness.  All of the photographs are unique single-exposure Polaroid photographs and not manipulated in any way after the exposure.