From April 11 to May 19, 2018, Parafin in London will present “Reactions,” an exhibition featuring the work of Sara Naim (born 1987, London). The artist’s first solo show with the gallery follows her participation in Secular Icons in an Age of Moral Uncertainty in 2017.
Photographic Artist Using Hi-Tech Tools
Naim is known primarily as a photographic artist but makes much of her work using a transmission electronic microscope, scanning electron microscope and a high-resolution flatbed scanner. Using these hi-tech tools, Naim creates seemingly abstract quasi-photographic imagery, which addresses philosophical concerns. Some of these include the “reality” of physical structures, the notion of the “border” and the possibility that technological glitches reveal new, abstract information.
In presenting her work, Sara Naim often blurs distinctions between image and object, so that her creations becomes a hybrid form between image and sculpture.
Magnification and Materialization of Chemical and Digital Interactions
For Naim, the notion of the “reaction” is a key concept. Characterizing a reaction as the byproduct of a changing state, her work explores the ways that under examination specific processes and substances can become physical manifestations of abstract reactions. These forms are visualized through the magnification and materialization of chemical and digital interactions. Massively enlarged biological surfaces and chemical structures thereby become suggestive of landscapes or organisms and take on pronounced human and emotional resonance.
Another key concept for Naim is the notion of the border. She questions the physicality of a border by visualizing micro-formations, and dissects how proportion shapes our perception and notion of the boundary.
Technological Glitches Stimulate New and Unique States
Technological glitches are another access point that Sara Naim uses to describe the fabric of contemporary encounters. In the exhibit at Parafin in London, her work explores the ways that chemical and physical reactions stimulate new and unique states, resulting in commonplace subjects being rendered strange and foreign.