During the past several years San Francisco-based Photographer Kerry Mansfield has seen her artwork
expand to a larger photographic audience. Her Borderline series is the culmination of seven years of work
exploring the synergy between indoor and outdoor spaces. While Kerry’s series “Aftermath” departs from her
traditional subject matter, the connection between space and body remains. Aftermath chronicles her 2 year
battle with breast cancer in a series of self portraits that explore the meaning of the body as both a canvas
and a distinctive moment in time.
Recently both series have been featured in venues such as Fraction Magazine (Issue 8 + Issue 20), PDN
“Photo of the Day” online, Michael Mazzeo’s Inaugural Online Exhibition Show “Arbor”, The Photo Review
2010 Annual, Photographer’s Forum 2010 Annual, Austria’s Women magazine, the Photo Center Northwest
Annual Exhibition with 3rd place, and most recently the winner of 1st and 3rd Prize for the Julia Margaret
Cameron Award (WPGA) in the Professional Self-Portrait category. In 2011 Aftermath will be shown in
March during the Malaga Photo Festival in Spain. In August of 2011, Kerry will have her work highlighted in
Buenos Aires, Argentina for the JM Cameron exhibition.

When I first encountered what I now call, a Borderline image, I wasn't sure if the resulting negative would tell the same story as my eyes. My camera responded with a defiant "Yes!" when contact sheets revealed an entirely new world. I have been working on the series ever since then by using the windows of my chosen home as a refractory device to merge the interior and exterior space onto one like plane. The process involves shooting and printing only one negative. There are no double exposures or digital manipulation of any kind. I have found the "analog" quality of this project to be essential to its creation. I never set-up or adjust the circumstances that produce the images, I simply hunt them down and capture them. 

Throughout this exploration I have found an often-harmonious union between man and nature. Mirrored, reflected and superimposed, the elements became interchangeable. The sky became ceilings. Trees became walls. Ground became floor. Air became windows. In the resulting photographs, the windows themselves vanish entirely while the outside pours inside and vice versa. Once a structure is built, we then believe ourselves separate or "safe" from the so-called chaotic influences of the natural world. What I have
found is that, in many respects, what we really believe is an illusion of separateness. And we've chosen this as our reality.

There is a place in between the hard lines of walls, ceilings and furniture and the botanical design that envelops the outside world where a seamless merge occurs and creates a third reality. One can no longer distinguish whether the wall in the image is concrete or if it merely floats through as apparition of itself in reflection. The union of these real and reflected images doesn’t seek to define themselves and separate
from each other. Nor do they seek to meld the two into one. They seek to explore the fine line in between - they simply exist, squarely on The Borderline.

wall space gallery | 116 East Yanonali St C-1 Santa Barbara, California 93101 | 805.637.3898 | gallery@wall-spacegallery.com

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