AMY THEISS GIESE / Concealed At First, At Last I Appear

May 25 – September 28, 2018

Amy Theiss Giese combines photography and sound to create site specific installations exploring the dynamic between actual and perceived space. Her images are photographic skiagrams, Greek for shadows written, and they are a visual translation of the shadows cast in a room at night. The sound is derived from recordings made in the same room and are modified into a digital translation of the images, pixels to MIDI notes.

Header image: 110311.20032116.02215 (detail), Amy Theiss Giese

Embedded in each skiagram scroll is an abstracted compression of an experience, yet they simultaneously hold the direct reference to the actual space and time. The sound is again an abstraction, a reinterpretation of the original experience through the filter of a visual understanding, and yet it too holds moments of a direct recording of the space itself. Both elements have an indexical relationship to the physical space of the building but do not actually depict the building itself. Rather, they evoke a sense of being in the building at this time, in this moment. The resultant installation is removed from all literal telling of what was there, and the shadows and sound have created a play of space and time that evokes rather than depicts reality.

About the Artist

Amy Theiss Giese is a Boston based artist and educator. Giese's work is rooted in materialism, exploring what the fundamental forces are for a given medium. Focusing on photographic and sound recordings of spaces and places, she looks at how slipping from one medium to another alters perception and expectations. She uses the language of abstraction to address the invisible and intangible forces that shape our lives. Giese is the Director of the MFA in Photography at the New Hampshire Institute of Art and has taught at various institutions since 2009 when she received her MFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, most recently at the Lishui and Yixian International Photography Festivals in China; the University of Maine Museum of Art; Providence Center for Photographic Arts; Colorado Photographic Arts Center and the Photographic Resource Center in Boston, MA. Giese’s series Infra Certum was recently featured in an interview published in the magazine Art New England. www.amygiese.com