The Australian artist, based in Los Angeles, transports us into all sorts of stories through her simulated miniature settings, mixing photography, model making, cinema, and drawing. In her uninhabited, strangely stylized, architectural environments, she gives birth to parallel realities on the borders of mysticism, like her “Madam Mystery” series, based on fictional storefronts. In her process, Anna Carey draws symbolic influence from the work of Robert Venturi, an American architect known for his “decorated sheds,” but also from the American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer for the use of neon lights combined with idiomatic displays.
The result is a fascinating game of fabrication and invention, sprinkled here with esoteric sciences, occult arts and magic, inviting us to a psychic reading where reality, reverie, and imagination coexist. The photographic medium through which she makes her images and models “authentic,” with all their imperfections, relies on the fleeting capture of reflected light. Her work with lighting and color gradation propels us into another space-time that gives free rein to the imagination.
Nathalie Dassa