“Seeing Double: The Anaglyphs of Eric Egas” @ Albany Institute of History & Art [Get Visual]

Review by David Brickman

Stereoscopy has been with us since the birth of photography in 1839, but outside of 3D movies, few of us give it much consideration. Eric Egas is an exception.

More than 30 years of efforts to capture three dimensions in flat images are presented in “Seeing Double: The Anaglyphs of Eric Egas,” on view at the Albany Institute of History & Art through Sunday, October 25 (an anaglyph is a blue-red stereo photograph). The exhibition, in Egas’s words, provides “portals for viewers to enter into a state of ambiguity” through gazing at these images both with and without the red/blue glasses provided (they also work with the images shown here – just be sure to put the red lens over your right eye).

But stereo is only part of the Egas effect. He makes variations on the classic red/blue separation, and then pushes those colors so that the overlapping images become as fascinating in themselves as they are when viewed in 3D. Egas has, over the years, increased the scale of these prints, and adopted a lush layering of pigment on canvas – in the end, they are sometimes more painting than photograph, featuring rich areas of red, blue, green and purple. A few images even flirt with full color rendition (while still being anaglyphs).

Click to read the rest at Get Visual…