by Mac Balentine
Some Notes on Water:
To see water is to see what water carries. It is visible only by way of another. Stand still and show the sky to itself. Touch and obliterate your image. Allow a ray of sunlight to pass through, and watch as it emerges—split apart at the seams—in parabolic technicolor.
To imagine water (to imagine alongside water), is to be carried away by its currents as thought-forms appear and disappear. This is the premise of hydromancy: water as site for divination and prophecy. For just as surely as water allows us to see ourselves (here and now), it offers glimpses of the there (and then).
A medium of possibility and entropy, water is a fluidly forming container. Washing itself clean with every ripple, water embraces the unknown. Image-breaker par excellence; true iconoclast.
Silver Sight presents an eponymous video of swirling, iridescent light. This video, entirely 3D modeled, is the result of white light captured after passing through a simulated fluid. The fluid is similar to water, however it has been made to refract light into a rainbow of colors due to an artificially high refractive index equivalent to that of a diamond. The installation of this video, projected onto the floor of an otherwise empty room, allows viewers to walk inside of the virtual, fluid volume.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Mac Balentine (b. Atlanta, 1989) is an artist and educator based in Athens, GA. He received his BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2012 and his MFA in studio art from the University of Georgia in 2021. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including Leeds College (UK), Centre International d’Art Contemporain (France), American Swedish Institute (Minneapolis, MN), Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA), Camayuhs (Atlanta, GA), and Athenaeum (Athens, GA).