And while novice photographers were competing for $500 at the House of Culture, artist Sarah Estephan is working to earn her name in Belize's art scene. Estephan has mounted her first solo art show at the Image Factory. It's called impulse and we found that this young artist has been following just that in a show that breaks many rules.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Whether it’s a solitary and suspicious ruddy-eyed dog trapped in a red background, or a rotting tapir overtaken by flies and returning to the earth, or a horse casually ambling through a house like he’s going to the kitchen for a cup of water, or an aerial landscape shot that looks like some biological detail of the intestine, Sarah Estefan’s pictures look otherworldly, capturing surreal scenes that most of us just walk right past.
Sarah Estefan,
I think that some of them can be very intimidating, very aggressive images and even when I take the shot I am extremely aware of the surreal moment. I think that I would like the viewer to take a look at it and realize that when you cut something down to a frame, one shot, I think it really brings out that kind of magic in everyday kind of situations. I am always just ready to react to anything that gives me an impulse.”
Impulse that’s the name of the show and that’s what combines these images that even when pretty like this young footballer, or an impossibly sensuous cow’s hide, share the interpretation of a commonplace image that we may have otherwise missed:
Sarah Estefan,
“I’d like people to realize that Belize isn’t only a place where you take pictures of coconut trees and very stereotypical kind of touristy images. This place is full of opportunities to take images you may never think were taken in Belize and I would like people to just see it in a different way.”
And in this photographic experience the difference is all you see.
The show opens tomorrow night at the Image Factory.