A woman with her back turned slouches in a patio chair bathed in ultraviolet light. Even though the light is cool it feels like one of those sticky summer nights when midnight offers no relief from the clammy heat. The strap of her white slip falls off her shoulder and her legs are spread – but not for us. The warped shadow of her crown of curlers is the only image in the white projection on the wall to her right. Her chalky white face mask matches the blank screen. Waiting to be projected on to. A cliche relaxation routine, a beauty ritual, an act of self love. A slight smile crosses her lips while she gazes away from the screen at her reflection in the sliding glass door.

A small river the color of listerine trickles between rusty red and orange boulders. The seductive color of this unearthly landscape threatens radioactivity. A jagged crevice that penetrates the rock reveals itself to be a cut in the photographic paper. The bright cyan drips are windex or cellophane or something else that I can’t put my finger on.

Sadie Wechsler’s images disrupt the ritual of consuming with one quick glance, the common mistake of swallowing whole. A first glance her images are familiar: a rocket ship surrounded by smoke, a group of tourists gawking, a television, a landscape, a portrait. With time – the pictures unravel and their familiarity is sliced apart. The TV is a box made from paper and tape, the tourists are watching the earth burn or they might be staring into a backdrop. I can see the seams, the cut paper, the manipulation does not merely reveal the image as fake. My eye is deceived and I must continue to look.

In her own words “Imagination proves to be the most loyal record keeper of the times. I visually approximate the disruptions and shifts of my experiences in the world. If photography is a medium capable of change, acclimation and physicality, it will speak natively to a life in flux.” See more of Sadie’s work on her website.