Have you ever felt both familiar and unfamiliar when looking at a place or an image? Visual artist Jared Pike’s pools evoke such an eerie feeling in most of us, joining the pantheon of liminal spaces. Dive in!
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Although in today’s article, we are mainly focusing on the former, the term liminal space refers not only to physical spaces but also to emotional or mental states. One of their most significant characteristics is that they form a kind of transition between two places or two states whether a life situation or a state of consciousness.
Such physical spaces include elevators, stairwells, locker rooms, corridors, parking lots, stations, and even gas stations. We usually pass through them unnoticed, mostly without even paying attention. But almost certainly everyone has had an experience similar to this: waiting for a bus at a bus stop at night and suddenly realizing that you are all alone and that the otherwise bustling, lively space is completely deserted. For a moment, you may feel as if you are outside the matrix.
The work of New York-based 3D artist Jared Pike follows a similar logic, except that the places he creates do not exist in reality. For his Dream Pool series, he based his works on modernist swimming pools inspired by the iconic designs of French architect Alain Capeillères from the 1970s.
Although the white tiles and azure water are indeed reminiscent of the famous architect’s creations, Jared’s pools seem to end nowhere. This emphasizes the transient nature of liminal spaces, and the sense of uncertainty is further enhanced by the fact that the pools usually continue in darkness. The liminal space is a place of waiting, of not knowing, and of doubt.
Yet unlike most liminal spaces, Jared’s world does not seem unsettling. Although there is the usual emptiness, we somehow get a pleasant feeling, and his images have a soothing atmosphere.
With this in mind, you might think you are caught up in a dream world where only the endless pool complex exists, but the rippling surface of the water and the sunlight suggest that the outside world is still out there somewhere.
In two weeks, we’ll be back with the background story of another Instagram page, but in the meantime, dive into the previous two episodes of our DIVE series, where you can get a closer look at the story of tinbrain and PlaymoGreek.
Jared Pike | Web | Instagram | Youtube
Source: Ignant
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