Lost Illusions

Lost Illusions (2019) is a mixed media installation that invites the viewer into a meditative, dreamlike forest—one conjured from transparency, texture, and refracted light. The work comprises eighteen suspended sheets of duralar, each over seven feet tall, hand-painted and screen-printed with organic, vegetal forms: seaweed, root systems, undergrowth, branches. These semi-translucent sheets are hung in a staggered formation to form a porous corridor, layering visual planes and evoking the sensation of looking into a dense forest or submerged marine landscape.

Projection plays a central role in activating this sculptural space. A 15-minute looping video washes across the sheets, casting gentle movement and layered colour into the room. Reflections scatter across the gallery’s surfaces. Accompanying this is a four-channel ambient soundscape composed by Aaron Hutchinson - an immersive sonic bed that resonates throughout the space, encouraging a slowed-down mode of attention.

Lost Illusions emerged from a period of reflection on ecological grief, healing, and the dissociation that often marks contemporary life. It proposes an alternate environment - one that rewards presence, stillness, and close looking. The project rests on a foundation of layered composition: material, visual, temporal, and sonic. These strata accumulate into an ephemeral ecosystem, one that drifts between tactility and light, memory and sensation.

Originally exhibited at Centre[3] in Hamilton during Supercrawl 2019, and DAF Festival in Geneva, Switzerland. Lost Illusions was supported by the Ontario Arts Council’s Media Arts Creation Grant.

Photography by Alejandro Collados-Nunez and Andrew Butkevicius.