The 2017 Sleight of Hand Exhibition

The 2017 Sleight of Hand Exhibition by Grant GillJune 23, 2017

©Danny Goodwin, Penrose Triangle

Photography is historically a vehicle for illusion. The very make-up of the process is alchemic—turning silver into sentiment, sediment into pixels—all while fragmenting information to articulate an event. For Sleight of Hand we called for practicing prestidigitators with a single, simple prompt—Trick us. Out of 80 submissions, these 17 photographers embraced this prompt, sharing work that is aware of its visual challenges and deceptions, yet still commands to be understood.

LENSCRATCH would like to thank Awagami Papermill in Japan for sponsoring this exhibition and offering a prize of $500 worth of Awagami Inkjet Papers. Awagami Inkjet Paper are revolutionary WASHI Japanese papers crafted for high quality inkjet printing for artists, photographers, and designers. I am excited to announce the winner of the prize is Danny Goodwin with his image above, Penrose Triangle. His image is such a simple nod to one of the oldest optical illusions, but one that has been completely contextualized into a contemporary trend. I find myself repeatedly going back to this image, tracing the shape, and trying to stabilize its form with no avail.

Congratulations to all of the participating artists:
David Avazzadeh, Matthew Bradley, Danny Goodwin, Joshua Hobson, Dorotka Kaczmarek, Amy Kim, Chaoyu Li, Wen Hang Lin, Rebecca Martinez, Jan Q. Maschinski, Sonia Melnikova-Raich, Julianne Nash, Adam Neese, Zak Alexander Rose, Benjy Russell, Jaclyn Wright, and Anna Yeroshenko