BFA Photography Exhibition by Celine Guilbaud: “Entropic Reverie: Dreams of More Natural Surroundings”

Photographs by UNC Asheville BFA student Celine Guilbaud will be featured in a new exhibition, Entropic Reverie: Dreams of More Natural Surroundings, which opens with a reception from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 6 Ramp Studio Gallery, 821 Riverside Dr., Asheville. The exhibit remains on view through Dec. 13. Admission is free to the reception and the exhibition. Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-8 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-8 p.m. on weekends, with evening and weekend entry through the French Broad Chocolate Factory entrance at RAMP.

Artist Statement

In my work, I aim to recall a sense of the natural – how it feels to interact with Earth and its various elements, and to highlight how our senses are dulled in an increasingly synthetic world. The average American spends 90% of every day indoors, something that is rarely considered abnormal in our fast-paced, technology-based society.

My photographic practice revolves around the daily sensation of being trapped inside closed doors and blank walls for hours on end, completely segregated from the outside world our ancestors inhabited. In my composited images, I escape the mundane boundaries of my spaces by juxtaposing them with the natural world that I crave, letting in the forces we expel from daily life.

My compositions are an attempt to capture and investigate the naturally occurring beauty on Earth, and how it has a positive effect on the mind and body when associated with everyday places; we are more attune to the aesthetics of nature than our own constructed ideas of space. This idea relates to the Japanese therapeutic practice of “Forest Bathing”, where one repeatedly goes into nature simply to observe and enjoy it. I use my camera as a means to take part in this custom in which nature is like a bath; all-encompassing and rejuvenating.

Drawing influences from Surrealism, Entropic Reverie seeks to combine the synthetic with the sublime to inspire the viewer to imagine an alternate reality where we live in greater harmony with the natural world.