Carly Ries

Carly Ries currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois. She received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was awarded the Bruce Goodman Fellowship for photography. Carly also received a BA from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, where she studied photography and art history. In 2015, Carly was an artist-in-residence at the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her work has been exhibited at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, EXPO Chicago, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, Schneider Gallery, Chicago, and The Johnson Gallery, Hampshire College, among others. 

I’ll be your mirror

I’ll be your mirror is an ongoing project in the city of Chicago and areas surrounding Lake Michigan. It is in these public spaces where we find refuge. Relaxing in the grass and the cement boardwalks of lakeshore parks, we are immersed in the openness of leisure time, a time spent not getting somewhere but being somewhere. We gaze out at the water, the constraints of the city hugging at our backs. I approach people, individuals and families who are gathering near the water, and ask permission to photograph them. The resulting portraits are somewhere between how I see them and how they want to be seen. Images solidify a momentary togetherness and affirm a crossover from strangers to collaborators, and the camera spurs this intimacy.

The title, I’ll be your mirror, comes from the Velvet Underground song of the same name, one of my favorite songs since I was a teenager:

I’ll be your mirror

Reflect what you are, in case you don’t know
I’ll be the wind, the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that you’re home

When you think the night has seen your mind

That inside you’re twisted and unkind

Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
‘Cause I see you

I find it hard to believe you don’t know
The beauty that you are
But if you don’t let me be your eyes
A hand to your darkness, so you won’t be afraid

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside you’re twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
‘Cause I see you

I’ll be your mirror

I’ll be your mirror

To view more of Carly’s work, please go to her website, and, most recently, the April 2016 issues of LDOC.