Installment #7 'Spectral'

Spring 2016, reception May 21st

​The Project Rooms is pleased to present ‘Spectral’, an exhibition of photographs by the animation artist Simon Allen, paired with photographs from the Lambertville Historical Society’s archives.
Over the last year, Allen has been working on an animated film which takes place in the small fictional town of ‘Mother’s Peak’. The numerous interior and exterior sets Allen has created for his film, are physically ambitious. Each miniature item, made meticulously by hand, must be moved ever so slightly between frames to create a seamless illusion of motion. During production, Allen has been taking still photographs on his sets that correspond to photographs of our own small community, found in the archives of the Lambertville Historical Society. Shown together in this exhibition, the photographs speak to the realism of place; questioning sometimes reversing the role of fiction and historical narrative. The images in ‘Spectral’ are similar in their familiarity to daily life, yet share a ghostly removal from from the present, by way of time and creative license.