Carine Idy

Carine was born in Israel and raised in Los Angeles, California. As a result, Carine is attracted to themes and stories that relate to uprootedness, identity, and interpersonal experiences. She pulls from her personal life in order to convey the irreconcilability and dissonance that exist within these themes. Carine finds inspiration in poets and composers such as Charles Baudelaire and Felix Mendelssohn. She has her BFA from University of Southern California, and has exhibited work nationally and internationally.

In The Middle of the Maze

In this series, I revisit feelings from my childhood, from before I left my family, and before I had language to describe the incongruity I felt with my home. Today, when I return home, the feeling is still preverbal—a collapsing of time wherein my past and future take up space in the present.

It manifests as a metaphorical maze of echoes, and in these photos you’ll find my best attempt to navigate it. Some of the images were staged, others found, yet all of them imaged at a consistently medium distance—close, but not intimate—as an invitation to consider them collectively.

To consider the materials of the maze: the tangled fibers—the knot of hair falling across an ear, the bundle of sticks, the twisted body of an old tree; the florals and textured fabrics—evoking the absence of the people who made them, who owned them, who loved them and wore them to threads; the intersection of natural and man-made worlds, living on top of and imitating each other, reminding us of the difference between growth and evolution. And the shadow, stark and looming as it moves across the images—progressing even as we pause to consider.

To view more of Carine Idy’s work please visit her website.