Breathing shows three series of photographic works by Sean Justice, namely the Vessel/Banner which are the introspective responses to his experiences in China, the Breathing Pictures which chronicle his conceptual explorations to encapsulate moments of existential awareness and the animated version of the Breathing Pictures.

Justice studied English literature in his university years and evolved into the field of photography from the late 1980’s. In 2010, he completed his doctoral studies in art education from the teachers’ college of Columbia University and at present immerses himself in the art of photography and art education at the college level.

 “I make pictures in order to understand my life; this act of imagination connects me to my experience and to the people in my life. It is fundamentally an abstract activity, a bizarre and naïve activity, and sometimes a senseless activity. For me it is also breathing – simultaneously an action and an affirmation of the will to act: simply to keep breathing,” he sums up his creative process in his artist statement.

Justice visited China to explore about Chinese contemporary culture i.e. art, business and education in 2005, and since then he has made numerous trips back and forth between New York and China. His experiences in China and his reactions to them deviate from the traditional responses of regular visitors. This is because he was totally engaged in his works during all these trips and his pursuit of reflective elements in life instead of recording the façade of exoticism. 

The works in the Vessel/Banner series come out of his impatience with traditional pictures of the exotic. He says that getting to know a culture that is not one’s own is difficult and his works intend to bring out the conundrum of the issue. “China feels complex, thick and opaque as well as energetic and friendly. These contradictions animate me. In China I’m enthralled and frustrated; at home I’m, making pictures to integrate the experience.”

Works in the Breathing Pictures series are his explorations of “here and now” as well as to activate the awareness of the immediate present. Each of the works, visually and initially, appears to be the imagery of a single frame of scenery but, in fact, each is a montage composed of multiple imageries aligned on certain salient features.

Justice says that he aims at incurring an optical illusion in the mind of the viewers at the moment when the picture is viewed and that imagery, a moment later, will disintegrate into an awakening of a different kind of pictorial awareness. Viewers are thus forced to realize of their immediate present because that single frame of illusion is, in fact, their own act of imagination.

In the animated Breathing Pictures, the continuous loop of the videos, slowly and simultaneously, changes the focus of the picture in multiple areas across the frame, guiding the viewers to concentrate on the act of perception itself and then from there leading their attention onto the awareness of “here and now”.