Kelly Nipper's Photographic Performances at Shoshana Wayne Gallery

Kelly Nipper's exhibition at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica, May 2002, presents photographic works that explore the mechanical permutation of inner life. The centerpiece, 'Théâtre 3 Shapes' (2001-2002), is a 3 x 2.40 m photograph of an empty room with three tiny lights spelling 'exit,' evoking a dark machinery akin to a cave. Nipper's series 'Timing Exercice' (2001-2002) comprises twelve paired images: portraits of three women and three men with closed eyes, each paired with a photograph of a digital clock displaying red numbers. The suspended time strips the numbers of meaning and freezes the human figure. Another series features photographic stages of artificial poppy-like plants growing on a red background. Nipper also captured sand grains blown by wind within a sixty-minute hourglass, symbolizing the death of caged time. The exhibition references Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow, and Allen Ruppersberg as influences. Critic Rosanna Albertini, translated by Pierre Camus, writes that Nipper's work treats consciousness and fears, staging only light dancing on the floor as ineffable emotion.