A Closer Look

With this body of work the artists dissect the still life genre with an investigative precision reminiscent of early modern connoisseurship. Like Renaissance collectors who sought to catalogue and anatomise the visual world, the Carters peel back the layers of traditional Dutch and Flemish compositions, isolating details once embedded in complex arrangements. By placing these meticulously selected elements against the void of a black background, they draw our attention to the tension between individual objecthood and the absence of context, much like how the artists of the Golden Age would imbue quotidian items with allegorical significance.

Yet the work is no mere homage to the past. The subjects themselves — flowers, fruit, and objects of opulence — are digitally remastered using AI to enhance their texture and sharpness. This manipulation introduces an essential dialogue between the realms of the analogue and the digital, interrogating the methods by which art can now be seen, examined, and, indeed, recreated. The Carters’ process resonates with a historical shift in representation, one that mirrors early printmakers’ fascination with capturing reality through evolving technological means. The resulting works, printed and framed in black oak, take on the gravitas of objects frozen in time, demanding our slow and careful inspection.

Their process, as they explain, revolves around the boundaries between ‘the real and the imagined, the analogue and the digital’. By extracting these objects from their original context and reanimating them through technological intervention, they reflect on the tension between looking and seeing, a return to the deliberate, sustained act of observation. A Closer Look, invites the viewer not only to observe but to contemplate the ways in which history and technology collide, with each work facilitating a renewed engagement with the art of seeing.