Graffiti, 2010, archival pigment print, dimensions variableIn her digitally manipulated photographs, Dunlevie adorns a main picture with iconic images such as birds, flowers, trees, spirals and other shapes that peel back a layer of the photograph to peek into another photograph, as if there’s a hidden world behind the picture. “All my work has a kind of inside-out-ness,” Dunlevie said. “A flipped perspective, like a puzzle almost.” The effect is that the main photos — in the alleyway series, it’s photographs of stark white lattice — have artfully placed windows that take on dramatic or playful shapes. The secondary photos are pulled from her archives and could have been taken anywhere and anytime. It’s the color and emotion that she’s looking for to enhance the main photo. “I’m using them as I used to use paint,” she said. (…)
Abandoned Forest, 2010, archival pigment print, dimensions variable
Dunlevie grew up in the South, wandering alleyways in Savannah, Georgia, and Dallas, Texas. On her first walk home from school with a boy, she remembers traversing the neighborhood alleyways that inspired the “Courting” piece that depicts love blooming like flowers in the cracks of sidewalks. Another piece, “Abandoned Forest,” illustrates the alleys where people would toss old Christmas trees in January. “I hope it evokes some kind of memories, even if it’s just of a season or sunlight,” Dunlevie said.