GARY HILL

HD LCD monitor, two amplified speakers, two giclee prints (combined dimensions of 95 x 84.5 x 8 inches), stereo viewer (aluminum and wedge prisms), and media player (color; stereo sound)

Edition of six and one artist’s proof (with two examples that include the HD video and stereo photograph together, two examples with the HD video only, and two examples with the stereo photograph only)

Beauty Is in the Eye consists of two parts:

1. A large stereo photograph (with the combined dimensions of 95 x  84.5 x 8 inches) which is viewed as is or with an accompanying free-standing stereo viewer approximately 8 feet from the photograph. The color image is of the artist in a phasmagoric costume complete with make-up, suggesting a cross between an extraterrestrial minstrel and perhaps a joker of some kind. The repeated motif of hexagons is expressed in a number of permutations--sewn fragments, origami folded paper and juxtaposed black hexagon-framed eyes. In one hand of the entity is a flying saucer-shaped server consisting of an array of small test tubes filled with water and containing a single flower of beauty. His other hand gestures forward with a single flower/test tube as if to make an offering.

2. Directly across from the photograph(s) is a large LCD screen (approximately 50-inch diagonal measurement) positioned vertically and displaying color HD recordings of people receiving the flower offerings one at a time. From darkness a single person emerges and walks towards the being to take the gift and is seen to reflect upon it in a multitude of ways. As each person touches the flower and responds to it, a complex cloud of delicate electronic timbres bursts open, seemingly reflecting the flower and viewer's interconnectedness.