Ahn, Jong Yuen’s latest work in the “Facing the Mirror” exhibit underscores her mastery of her present medium, mirror quality stainless steel.? Her meticulously “pecked out” portraits on the mirrored surfaces have been achieved with a hand sized air drill and specialized bits, and take advantage of the hidden light quality of the stainless steel.

Familiar faces have been inscribed with numerous dots onto variously shaped steel mirrors, and the finished images are changeable depending on the artist’s intention, the angle of light, and reflected images.? Form and content are variable giving rise to spontaneous after images in the form of the viewer and the foreground of where the portraits are placed.? Understanding this flexibility is a shortcut to understanding Ahn’s latest work.

It is not until you view the portraits up close that you realize your face is being reflected over top of the inscribed face.? Sometimes you encounter another viewer, sometimes not.? In either case there is a cascading of faces creating the illusion of many other faces inside you.? At first glance the blank variously shaped mirrored steel alternately interspersed among the portraits appear to contain other images but it soon becomes evident these images are the viewers and their background. A jig saw like puzzle of virtual images piled one upon the other emerges.? The viewer becomes a focus, becomes an image, and becomes an organic element of the exhibit.