Candela Gallery: UnBound13!

American Hypnosis is on display through August 3rd in the annual UnBound exhibition at Candela Gallery.

Now in its 13th year, the UnBound Annual Exhibition is presented by the Candela Gallery and Photography Book publishing in Richmond, VA.

By definition, hypnosis is the induction of a state of consciousness in which a person loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction.

Having spent my formative years in the American “heartland,” I considered myself a patriot, and like many, I had a deep sense of pride for my country. But today, being an American feels similar to an animal pacing within the confines of a zoo. If provided the illusion of just enough freedom you can mask the reality of one’s own captivity. The result leaves me with a sense of waning dignity. We are collectively on display to intrigue, terrify, and satisfy the world’s voyeuristic curiosity.

Here, you will find surreal postcards from this fever dream—a feeling of familiar uneasiness transmitted from a citizen who is equally intrigued by his home as he is alarmed. They are deceptively nuanced photographs of—and for—an America that has done everything it can to abolish nuance, creating bleached-out stand-ins for the place itself. In a time in which the truth is constantly under attack, American Hypnosis proves these same truths can be stranger than fiction.