Freezing Time in Surreality
New York City-based artist Mauricio Alejo dives headfirst into surreality with his series “Bird in Flight”, capturing motion at a tense standstill: billowing pillowcases threaten to collapse; a pencil stands in a taut web of threads; intricate sculptures made from tape are held onto the wall—but just barely. Frozen in the image, the temporary sculptures offer no clues as to where they came from or where they’re going. Instead, they exist as artifacts of a moment of perfect balance. Of the series, Alejo says, “The images that I enjoy the most are the ones that propose an ambiguous relationship with the experience depicted—when meaning is somehow dislocated and hard to pinpoint”.