Paulette Omura: Reconstructions

“In my work, I create worlds both physical and psychological, populated with the uncanny and infused with a sense of isolation, tourism, and subtle voyeurism. Within these worlds time and space are represented and interpreted.  Utilizing imagery that documents the process of decay, transient states of being are reassembled in non-linear ways. Non-linear composition becomes a world in itself, with its own vocabulary and set of assumptions. Within these worlds time and space are captured, deconstructed, and reassembled, and spaces that once existed in four dimensions are reinterpreted within two.

The works are all physical representations of time, but each construct is unique to its own diegesis. Depicted is a tension between decaying imagery – spaces that no longer are but still have not yet ceased to be – and the re-imagining of the creative process.  My work attempts to recreate the actual, lived atmospheric experience of the building over time.  Each photo may be thought of as portrait, but it is the slow unfolding of a sculptural rather than a strictly photographic process, which is further reduced back to the fixed vantage point of painting. “

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Paulette Omura’s work has always been drawn to the rich history of that city, its architecture, and its place within a modern portrait of urban mid-west life.
She earned her BFA from Pratt Institute and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York but still travels extensively, exploring these places of intersection between the old and the new.
The pieces presented here reflect an ongoing project that examines and re-portrays the attrition of a St. Louis city neighborhood and the ubiquitous nature of passive neglect in abandoned structures.