Paal Williams and Marissa Dembkoski (PWMD)

PWMD is a collaborative artist team composed of Marissa Dembkoski and Paal Williams. They received their BFA from Lesley University College of Art and Design in Photography and Art History in 2017. Their work intertwines artistic tensions from the history of photography, and contemporary modes of photographic production to question the constructs of visual culture. They are currently living and working in St. Louis, MO. The first solo exhibition of their work “A Flat World of Paper” will open at Gallery Kayafas in Boston, MA in November 2017.

A Flat World of Paper

Photography has always relied on available technology. However, it has remained a constant that photography is a flat world made of paper. To further convolute this concept of photographic flatness, it seems necessary to use the z-axis that has been left out of the photographic conversation for so long.

Through 3D prints and photographic still lifes, we are reinterpreting the materials and expected subject matter of photography to distill the experience of looking at images to its fundamental properties: perspective, size, composition, and setting. We play to the viewers’ expectations and experiences of looking at photographs by constructing images to mediate the viewer’s experience. In our image-based world, three-dimensional things become flat, and flat things become three dimensional.

As collaborators, we are removing the image referent to reject authorship and subject matter, and question the role of a photograph in contemporary culture. By referencing the digital production space of photographs, we are utilizing modes of production and reproduction to celebrate and question the possibilities of the medium of photography.

To view more of PWMD’s work please visit their website.