Blaise Tobia: Slight Perturbations of the Surface

Blaise Tobia artistic practice has often involved the pairing of photographs. He finds that image juxtapositions can both disrupt and stimulate the normal process of “reading” the images to extend, clarify or otherwise modify perceived meanings. Indeed, many photographers other than myself have experimented extensively with image pairings, including Ray Metzger, Nathan Lyons, and fellow Philadelphian James Abbott, to name just a few (Note that he consciously avoids the term “diptych” for these pairings because — as one of my art historian colleagues explained — a diptych is a continuous image in two parts, rather than a pairing of distinct images.)

In creating his own pairings, Tobia sorts through thousands of images from his own archive, looking for potential matches. When a pair works, an overall whole is created that is a synthesis of the two images while also preserving their individual integrity. Often, a “third” image is created that may be perceived simultaneously with the two individual images.