“If the space I am creating is the real, then what does the unreal look like?”
I keep returning to the idea of portals. I find myself ruminating on where they crop up in history and myth, in folklore and fantasy. These physical spaces and objects that signify the touching of two worlds, and how these other worlds flow into ours gradually. Revealing themselves in the smallest of glimpses. In the details you catch out of the corner of your eye. Because of this I have focused my work on details of the regular. On moments that could conceivably be within anyone's purview, but with just enough subtle change that the difference itself becomes unparsable. I want the viewer to be uncertain about which way they are going. Are they leaving our world for the fantastical or are they returning home to safety and the known?
I also find myself reflecting on the concept of the digital. Data-based landscapes also contain portals although they are harder to spot. We now experience them within a millisecond, the span of time it takes to click a button. Instead of traversing worlds they become ways to jump from one spot of information to the next. I want to draw on the idea of classical portals while giving the viewer a strong feeling that they reside within a digital plane. To question what is the true reality. If the space I am creating is the real, then what does the unreal look like?
Samantha Hayslett is a local contemporary artist who is known for her strong use of color and light and deference to the everyday. She grew up in Branford Connecticut, got her bachelors at Ursinus College in mathematics, and is now studying to get her MFA at BU. She has been in many New Haven Paint and Clay Club exhibitions as well as Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts exhibitions. She has also won three awards for her art from those shows. She has a studio in Erector Square but spends most of her time up in Boston getting her degree.
