In Living Pictures, the settings - laundromat, stadium, beach – become stages in which Moncaca Duncan and Lara Odell perform still actions. In these motionless, durational states, they become equal to their surroundings. The artists wear matching outfits in distinct colors similar to elements of the scene and place themselves in situations as if they are objects in a framed composition. For example in Stadium, they assume the color of the architectural railings beneath signage that reads “Ladies” while in Behind the Autostore, they blend in with the building. Like matching colors, stillness is a form of camouflage. The buildings and objects remain still, and so do they. Random elements such as the movement of natural light, passersby and cars create a perceptual shift which alerts the viewer to the passing of time. Influenced by nineteenth-century tableaux vivants, Edward Hopper paintings, and Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills, the scenes create a paradoxical contrast of being both isolated from, and integrated within the space. At some point a movement is instigated by one of them and they locate themselves in a new space and then become still, again. Periodic hibernation.

Monica Duncan grew up in Webster, NY—around the apple orchards of Lake Ontario, the industry of Kodak and the tales of the Rochester Knockings. Her time-based and sculptural work investigates the nature of visual and temporal perception through camouflage, stillness and the surrogate body. She is interested in the site of the seam, a space for the erotic and everyday.

Duncan’s work has been exhibited at the 11th LA Freewaves Festival, Los Angeles, BS1 Contemporary Art, Beijing, China, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, LACMA, Los Angeles, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia and forthcoming La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain. She has attended residencies at the Experimental Television Center and has been a Visiting Artist at Atlanta College of Art and Railroad Earth, Atlanta, Georgia. Duncan received her BFA at NYSCC at Alfred University and is currently a graduate student in the Visual Arts Department at University of California, San Diego.

Lara Odell’s work combines video, drawing and performance. Her individual and collaborative projects explore the failure of identity, so performance anxiety, the double and camouflage are recurrent themes. Figures come to life in her animated drawings, and performers remain still in her videos – a drawing tells a story and a narrative in video form paints an image. Odell's work has been exhibited in Novosibirsk, Russia; Beijing, China; Habana Viejo, Cuba; London, New York, and Los Angeles, among other places. She has art degrees from Alfred University, SUNY Buffalo and University of California, Irvine.