Reflections in A Mirror, 2021
Acrylic, graphite point, cross-linked polyethylene tubing, LED
44/9 × 57.5 in
When the mirror holds two presences in tension between connection and erasure, seeing oneself is no longer enough to recognize oneself.
Reflections In a Mirror lies at the heart of the Behind the Obvious series, in which Abraham Aronovitch explores figurative painting as a space of intimate confrontation. Here, the mirror ceases to function as a simple tool of recognition and becomes a device of mental projection. The work stages a couple of blue-toned silhouettes whose identities appear to fragment and shift under the effect of reflection.
The figures, partially dissolved within their own image, resist the status of portrait. They emerge in a state of suspension, confronted with an unstable and elusive representation of themselves. Through this dispositif, the artist proposes an experience of the gaze in which the stake is no longer the fidelity of representation, but the fundamental difficulty of grasping oneself—and the other—within the relational frame. The integration of LED tubes and graphite underscores the hybrid dimension of this search for the self, poised between materiality and evanescence.