In Vacuo
Julie Chen Merritt
September 1 - October 31, 2013
Tao Te Ching-
The wall all around
A clay bowl is moulded:
But the use of the bowl
Will depend on the part
Of the bowl that is void.
My father suffered a stroke just as my first photography show was to open in Boston in 1991. It was a very difficult, bittersweet time, and I was young and irrational - angry at him for “ruining” my time to shine. My accomplishment felt empty. My heart felt empty. My expectations of a career felt empty. Was this another sign of his disapproval?
I slowly worked through my disappointment and the grief after his death. Soon after, I began to see the many valuable things that emerged from this emptiness, from the vacuum that had consumed my world, and the vacuum into which my father had disappeared. This series of images were what came out of that period of uncertainty, and my glimpse across that void.
I wanted to explore the body in abstracts. It reflected the way I felt then about my body, and myself…not fully whole. Additionally, this work explores my journey to see what I missed when seeing something whole instead of in detail. I had the realization of how fragile life is and how life is made of many stages and parts; and how often we don’t reflect on the important details of someone until they are no longer there. As Kafka said “We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds.” “He should know that true empty space is where the clouds of uncertainty have completely dissipated.” -- from Miyamoto Mushashi’s The Book of Five Rings-The Scroll of Heaven.