Ethereal images that enthrall and blur the boundaries between illusion and reality are Kaufman’s newest body of work. In Surface Tension, the artist continues her examination of human presence in relation to the natural world.  Kaufman constructs her vignettes in the studio using various lighting techniques, textile screens, reflective surfaces, and lenses to create space and depth ultimately resulting in fabricated, yet familiar environments.  Her process is a combination of organic, low-tech studio processes captured on film followed by digital processes.

The resulting images are a combination of vivid colours that seep across the picture plane creating an elusive subterranean depth that speak to naturally occurring complex systems, such as the roots of a tree or the interior of the body.  Pairing these fictional landscapes with the human body creates a nourishing and protective connection that activates a state of flux between physical and psychological space. Kaufman sees these collected works as targeting our collective anxiety regarding our arduous relationship to the natural world.

In Cloud Cover, Kaufman creates ethereal images that blur illusion and the natural world. Evoking diverse psychological landscapes, the series reveals the mutual vulnerability of humans and nature. Cloud imagery manifests repeatedly and in many forms: as an amorphous white mass shaped in the hands of a female figure, as a dense hovering focal point in a deserted landscape, and as an inky fog hovering at the edges of the more abstract works in the series.

In Between is a photo and video-based reflection on human and ecological movement and motion.  By capturing and deconstructing aspects of movement, new physical and psychological exigencies come into play.  From still and contemplative to dynamic and unsettling, the works metaphorically probe control, desire, freedom and the moments that happen in between. The photographic works are divided into three suites: In Between Study 1-3 captures the movement and transformations of a single figure moving through an ambiguous light-filled and watery setting. In Between Study 4 and 5 shows a partial figure on a swing, caught between one motion and the next. While the In Between series is exuberant and forceful Nightwatch 1-4 is a quiet four-part performance that is intimate and reflective.

NIGHTWATCH

Part of the In Between series of works these intimate and reflective portraits metaphorically probe aspects of control, desire, and freedom.

A photographic and multi-screen video installation explores the uncontrollable and elusive nature of uncertainty that wallpapers contemporary life. Simultaneously playful and alarming, News From Nowhere offers provocative coping strategies for the unexpected. Fractured surfaces, unpredictable movement and shifting realities underscore the ever-present anxiety of shocking news delivered without warning.
The large-format photographic works in News From Nowhere support the notion of remaining steadfast in a shifting and precarious world. Series 1 with its acts of magic, illusion and gender-bending feistiness offers alternative strategies of resistance to unpredictability. Reflective and intimate, the images in Series 2 hover on the edge, searching out and making small gestures toward somewhere.

Suspended is a photo and video installation of constructed fiction. Using would- be circus performers as subjects, Suspended explores the boundaries between illusion and reality capturing private scenes of performance in which desire for the impossible prevails. Caught in desperate and absurd situations, solitary acts of magic and illusion do not entertain, but instead isolate the characters in a private and unending cycle of performing. Images of suspension conflate opposites: freedom and confinement, determination and futility, bravery and crippling inaction. With references to metaphorical and allegorical principles, Suspended recalls the myth of Icarus who flew too close to the sun and Sisyphus who unwittingly is condemned to an endless purgatory. Like Lucky and Vladamir these individuals are confined to an absurdist reality with no beginning and no end, just endless and determined repetition with darkly amusing results.

Hotel Insomnia is a six-part narrative-based work that takes a satirical look at two intimates who, through a one night performance, attempt to communicate with each other the old-fashioned way. Caught in a slightly unreal world, they struggle to resolve their impasse, but without success. In the real world these two individuals spend a good deal of time communicating in the virtual world. Abbreviated electronic messages, twitter, myspace, facebook, mini and micro blogs, and short bursts of entertainment compete for their attention. Time invested in books, in conversation and in creative thought is at risk. As Alberto Manguel suggests in his book The City of Words, the secrets to our ability to communicate across borders may be found in myths, legends, and the stories we tell one another.

Paper Shadows is a cautionary tale told through the uneasy interplay of human activity within the natural world. The large format photo-based images conflate notions of tranquility and disturbance. The result is an unsettling reflection upon our collective anxieties. From beekeepers to parachutists; from suicide bombers to surfers; from airliners to blackbirds, Paper Shadows plays a visual riff on contemporary hopes and fears. Held together by a simmering underbelly of disaster that floats just below the surface, the images are both instructive and darkly amusing. They are also just paper shadows.

Sure Sign is a large format photo-based installation that explores the fragile yet steadfast nature of human beings living in a dangerous world. As a constructed reality, it is both a metaphor for the individual caught in a personally precarious situation and a cautionary tale for the larger world that we live.

Flotation Devices is a photo-based installation in which a constructed reality is presented in a theatre-like setting. Caught in a photographic corridor between movement and suspension, between ephemeral and permanence, the constructed images become part of a larger unfolding narrative with an indeterminate ending. Issues regarding the blurring of boundaries between the real and constructed realities, the fragility of the human body and psyche, the nature of coping with the unknown, and futile acts of attempted resolution play themselves out on a makeshift stage.