All artists bare the psychological markings of an absconded truth. Some play on this truth through static image imbued with a flagrant nostalgia for a past and present that might co-exist were it not the making of their own imaginary distortions.

The spaces NAICA artist-in-residence, Kimowan McLain, has photographed, only to reinterpret through painting and video collage, do exist but ephemerally. This, it would seem, is his intention.

An old cotton mill is memorialized in greens and blues with floating heads signifying the past inhabitants of the dull factory drudge. His works with moths on paper, projected then photographed, then re-animated to life through video, flit through the seams of our conscious imagination if one can imagine consciously imaging dead moths flitting back to life.  None of this seems intentional.

In other seemingly straightforward photographs, lakes reside in cities where Indians hang until dusk only to return to the imaginary rez in some imaginary plane beyond mainstream grasp. These are his most poignant images. Child-like moments that hang on horizons of blue and green far from the tragic (and oft-romanticized) reality of mundane urban/rez Indian life, but only too real to be imaginary. Re-connection to loss of time lost by design. Designed to reinterpret imaginary truths absconded by realities of life elsewhere-the rez and beyond.

It is important to note Kimowan McLain is an artist and an educator.


Links to more images by Kimowan McLain:
http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/win2005/mcclain.php
http://www.ackland.org/art/exhibitions/faculty/2007/mclain.php