Further explore the exhibition’s theme of semi-visibility through a slow-looking exercise related to this work.

Transcript
Narrator: Joiri Minaya’s "Irreducible Convergence," from 2020, is an inkjet print, 5 feet tall by 3 1/4 wide. It shows a bare, light brown photorealistic arm of an otherwise camouflaged figure, who is reaching across herself to clutch the outer fold of her sarong and pull it over her shoulder while tilting and stooping to get under it at the same time. The sarong pattern covers her head and face, as well, except for two eye holes, which look as if cut from a sheet with scissors for an improvised ghost costume. The fabric doesn’t drape so much as it appears to be cut out and pasted onto an image of the woman. Its print pattern blends strangely well with the computer-generated wallpaper background at first glance.

On the sarong, leaves, fern fronds, and a flower are the repeating elements. But the wallpaper is a pattern of ragged-edged, oblong blobs with specks and eye-puzzling infills. Yet the shapes and tilts and sizes have a likeness that blends with the sarong and the matching color palette of purple, green, white, and black. The dress and the background might just derive from the same original image, which became the wallpaper pattern after a sequence of computer operations. It isn’t obvious: Is this a woman dressing to be seen, or dressing to be invisible?

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