NOT AN EXIT

NOT AN EXIT is a collection of large format analog photographs that proposes a closer examination of the nondescript interiors that we routinely pass through; doorways and hallways, spaces intended for movement but here, somehow appear impenetrable. Irving transforms dead ends into studies on the architecture—spatial and psychological—of confinement, straddling the boundary of absurdist and unsettling. Both banal and bizarre, the Kafkaesque quirks and the illusionistic geometry of these locations draw the eye deep into the picture, only to be thwarted in its progress through space. Presented as close-to-life-size Lightjet prints, the scale and repetitive compositional elements of these images evoke a methodology of clinical examination and categorization of the liminal spaces we inhabit and yet often never truly see. We are going somewhere and yet — there seems to be no way out.

The images included in this series were made on 4x5 color negative with a Toyo Field camera and shot on location internationally in Singapore, India, Austria, China, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Greece, Austria, The Netherlands, and domestically in New York, Maryland, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, California, and Washington.