about these works

Anthony Lepore’s body of work points to the conceptual convolutions of representing three dimensional objects in a two-dimensional medium. But his play actualizes both two and three dimensions—one is not swapped for another. His is a practice of legerdemain, a delightfully precise portmanteau that translates as “light of hand” (another coinage for sleight of hand). Light of hand is central to many of his works, but especially in No Condition is Permanent and Tomorrow is Uncertain, walnut box sculptures the interiors of which are visible through a peephole. The boxes adapt a stage illusion popularized in the latter half of the 19th century nicknamed Pepper’s Ghost. The technique manufactures ghostly apparitions with glass and light, a deception you may know firsthand if you’ve ever visited Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Lepore first explored Pepper’s Ghost for a fourth-grade science project. Here he condenses and boxes it to focus the eye on a ceramic tile that transforms into another before our one eye.


Text by Jenelle Porter (excerpt)