Alexis Anne Mackenzie’s new show Multiverse explores how minor fluctuations in circumstance, or a slight rearrangement of the same elements, can create a wholly different entity. The term Multiverse is the blanket term for parallel universe theories.
Most of Mackenzie’s work over the past year has investigated living a sort of double or split life. The new direction in her work started with “Synthesis”: her project-space show at EHG less than a year ago. We are delighted to be showing more of her new works.
As Mackenzie delves deeper into the new direction of her work, she is thinking in larger terms, moving from just the personal sphere to a consideration of how we all have multiple facets of our lives, and about how so many things that we do and experience hinge on chance encounters, forks in the road, choices, and risk taking. She is playing with the idea of trusting the universe, as it were, then considering what so doing entails.
The exhibit is comprised of diptychs and single original images that have been altered to be unrecognizable from their original selves. The diptychs are two images that are combined to create one clear and one “scrambled” version. Sometimes the diptychs are created out of three images. One image is cut and layered over two others, representing how the same exact image will manifest differently depending on circumstance.
Mackenzie wants these works to speak to the parts of ourselves that reflect on where we are in our lives and how we got here. She posits that one reason people are interested in parallel universe theories is that these theories appeal to the parts of ourselves that have made mistakes or missed opportunities. Conversely these theories also resonate with the parts of ourselves that are grateful for the path we’ve taken or the luck we’ve enjoyed. These theories, and by extension the work in her new show, acknowledge how malleable we are as people, and how random “fate” can be.
