This series of enlarged Polaroids features a recurring cast of characters and animals moving through familiar neighborhood scenes.  They are caught in dreamlike moments—falling, rising, or floating, on their way to somewhere else.  Orientation to gravity is questionable.  Some are whimsical, others disquieting.      

Off-kilter compositions suggest a hint of peril.  

 

 I embraced the shortcomings of the Polaroid print and turned them into aesthetic positives.  The soft focus and muddy colors provide an atmospheric backdrop to the more frontal action of the people and animals.  By enlarging the originals, the quiet intimacy of the pocket size Polaroid expands into something loud and unruly.  This radical scale deviation changes everything.  Printed on a polyester weave, vinyl substrate, the works are mounted inches off the wall, unframed, like hanging textiles.  They are allowed  to move and bend. They are not only images, but objects occupying space.  

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 The series consists of more than twenty prints.  Nine are shared here as an entry point.  

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 In 2026 my work has been featured in the group exhibitions Making Strange, at Praxis Photo Arts Center, Minneapolis;  A Celebration of Contemporary Photography, at PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT;  Untitled 20 , at Soo Visual Arts Center, Minneapolis; and Light on Cut Paper, at New Orleans Photo Alliance,

New Orleans.  

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 James Byrne