Michael Rainey

Artist Statement

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

At the still point” comes from Part II of the poem Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot. Burnt Norton was the first poem of Eliot’s Four Quartets, and was first published in 1936.

In 2020, I found myself limited not by the pandemic, but physically. I started to make photographs at home and on our grounds and throughout my daily routines. I photographed from where, physically, I found myself, never seeking out a view or opportunity to make a photograph.

Thoreau said when one awakens, meaning intellectually, and I suppose spiritually, it is as if one has woken from the dead and you awake as a new person, next to the old person you used to be. One is therefore “beside oneself” which is often taken to mean not a good thing. However philosopher Stanley Cavell, in "The Senses of Walden" pointed out to be beside oneself is one of the vernacular expressions we use to speak of joy.

Photographers and critics sometimes note the difference between looking, pointing towards something, and seeing. Susan Sontag observed that with photography’s growth, acceptance, and everyday usage, that “...everything existed to be photographed...” But her complete thought was “...to be photographed, not looked at.” Everything does indeed seem to be photographed, but I wondered if everything can still be looked at, and moreover, be seen. And could I find the traditional notion of beauty in such photographs?

In our everyday understanding, we believe that photographs suspend. What if that understanding deters us from a fuller understanding of the world and of ourselves? I go to great effort in my non-traditional photographic work, where time is the dominant problem, to point that out, and to disagree with Photography’s traditional role in reinforcing understanding our lives in terms of a single arrow of time.

But it seemed to me these photographs did not truly suspend or fix and it seemed as I had discovered an “in between” and they suggested to me the opposite, that nothing can be fixed, and I found Eliot’s poetry furthered my understanding.

As I worked, I did not feel like the outside observer. It seemed like the world was peering back at me—and I had that sense I was beside the world as I used to know it, yet still in the world. In other words, quietly beside myself, and I think that is where these photographs come from.