Frames by Bryan Parnham

Sep 21

Bryan Parnham is a Virginia artist whose work we are pleased to feature both in The Jewelry Box and in our showcases. His exhibition Frames features nine new brooches Bryan has created in silver and etched zinc.

Frames

These nine objects are simultaneously (in no order of value) jewelry, photographs, and paintings. The factors that signify them as one of the aforementioned also deny them as another. As jewelry, they are small and wearable but their form and frames follow the conventions of painting. As photographs, they emulate pictorial reality but are blurred and painted over. Being painted, they meet the minimum requirement to be paintings (though their size, material construction, and predominant photographic aspect are sufficient to keep them from functioning in this category).

This ontological “Who’s on First?” makes for a familiar unfamiliarity intended to address the potential for repurposing conventions.