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 is an interdisciplinary artist and educator investigating our world through live performance, print and video. Duncan received her BFA in 2002 from the School of Art and Design, NYSCC at Alfred University with a concentration in printmaking and video. Since graduating, she has assisted organizations and artists at the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY, the Experimental Print Center, Queens, NY, the Experimental Television Center's International Summer Workshop, Owego NY and Arts Electronic. Her still and time-based image work has been exhibited at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo NY; Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Habana Viejo, Cuba; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Little Theatre, Rochester, NY; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN; LadyFest Ohio, Columbus OH; Atlanta College of Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery; Watertower, Louisville, KY; Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY; ZKM, Karlshrue, Germany; LACMA, Los Angeles, CA.

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.