Whitehot Suggests: Twin Flames: Justin Aversano at Superchief Gallery

Bahareh & Farzaneh Safarani, 2018.

Twin Flames: A solo-exhibition by Justin Aversano (with accompanying book) 

Superchief Gallery (1628 Jefferson Ave, Ridgewood NY 11835.)

May 18th - May 31st, 2019

By WM Staff, May 2019

From the press release: 

Justin Aversano, b. 1992, is an artist and curator based in New York, NY. Aversano studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York graduating in 2014 with a concentration in photography. Aversano has exhibited work in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Aversano’s curatorial repertoire includes a number of shows with an emphasis on community at The Living Gallery, Bushwick Community Darkroom, Petite Gallery, Contra Gallery, and The Storefront Project. Aversano is the Co-Founder and Creative Director of Save Art Space and co-curates bi-monthly public installations, partnering with local and regional businesses to convert billboards and languishing spaces into works of art. Founded in 2015, Save Art Space enriches local communities through public beautification and fosters creative culture by giving artists the opportunity to use our platform to display their work.

Henrik & Dries Preston Ogletree, 2018.

“For “Twin Flames” I photographed 100 sets of twins, aiming to create body of work focused on the existence of multiple births and the phenomena of twindom through an immersive portrait survey. Twins and multiple siblings provide a lens on the magic and causality of biology. In our everyday society, twins, triplets et al. have an assigned position within all current and historical cultures—a shared tulpa of genetics, fate and timing. Twindom has a deep root in shared storytelling, its visuals conjure metatextual manifestations across the astrological, the mythological, the academic and the popular, stringing together tangents of the everyday and simultaneously karmic. By using three formats of film Polaroid, 120mm, and 4x5 by focusing on the simple idea of seeking an “intentional phenomenology” by direct image making, I can facilitate a broad and reflexive photographic engagement that is about these unique individuals and their presence in our collective nature.”

Vera & Barbara Ann Duffy and (“Jimmy, Saoirse, and Albie”), 2018.

"Twin Flames" is a photographic exploration of the phenomenology of twins. From early in photography's history, twins have been catalogued and investigated through photographic means; in medical journals and textbooks to the uncanny lens of artists such as Diane Arbus and Vivian Maier, twins have been a constant cultural fixation on the weird and preternatural that is prevalent across the genetic pool. Photographer Justin Aversano's own life and work is connected in a similar eldritch way, learning later in life that he is the surviving sibling of a set of fraternal twins, his twin sister having not developed properly in utero and causing his mother a partial miscarriage while they were in the womb. It was not until Justin began working with spiritual guides and psychics that he was able to reconnect with his lost twin sister, learning that part of her still remains with him when he absorbed what he believes is her spiritual existence, which bonded with him and has continued on as a part of him, later leading him to create this body of work. "Twin Flames" is a collection of over 100 sets of twins, both identical and fraternal, that Justin sought out in order to better understand his own place within the narrative of this unique genetic occurrence. By photographing twins across a variety of photographic formats, while allowing them to set the circumstances of their environment and visual representation, Justin believes this project allows for a greater understanding of twins as a not outliers in our world, but as unique manifestations of the multiplicity of the self in both the physical and spiritual realms. WM