JLR Photo

WHERE DREAMS CROSS

For more than 20 years now, Jane Levy Reed has been making photographs of crosses and cross-like forms. Photographing throughout North and South America, Europe and as far reaching as the Middle East, Reed has produced an evocative body of work examining this symbol's omnipresence and it's fluid meaning across cultures and time. Through the over 66 photographs represented in Where Dreams Cross (gleaned from over 1,000 images), Reed's sustained meditation on this form transcends traditional Christian connotations. She draws on the formal features of the cross - a crossroads of two contradictory forces - as a point of departure for a more wide-reaching examination. Reed explains, "For me, this symbol considers a broader impulse, which redefines our gaze of the cross, not solely as a religious icon, but rather places it on a more metaphysical, soulful, spiritual, and a personal ledge." Like Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams and Minor White before her, Reed considers how a familiar symbol distinctly resonates with each viewer, incorporating the onlooker into her creative endeavor. In so doing, she renders one of the most loaded icons in Western culture a more elusive and open gesture, available for personal interpretation.