LUMINA OBSCURA

The Art of Jay Sims

 

[catalog entry]


Untitles (Series 2)

  • Date: 2003
  • Medium: 35mm & 120 b/w film, digitally refined
  • Format: Proofs only

Untitled (Series 2) explores the interplay of form, shadow, and spatial ambiguity through a tightly focused set of black and white photographs. Shot on both 35mm and 120 film and later digitally refined, the images isolate the figure in stark chiaroscuro, often fragmenting the body into limbs, gestures, and glances that hover between intimacy and abstraction.

The compositions make deliberate use of negative space and architectural elements—wrought iron, staircases, stark walls—to complicate the viewer’s orientation and to frame the subject as both present and obscured. In several images, the figure is doubled by shadow or segmented by decorative ironwork, creating a visual rhythm that suggests concealment as much as revelation. The expressive tension between motion and stillness, visibility and veiling, animates the work with a quiet theatricality.

Though the series remains unfinished, these proof images offer a cohesive exploration of atmosphere and gesture—moments of elegant ambiguity caught at the threshold of narrative and visual abstraction..



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Digitally refined proofs from the unfinished project Untitles (Series 2). These test images represent a work in progress and were never part of a finalized edition.

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