[Fall 1993]

 
Summary
When the Mind Hears, Part II and the other recent series by April Hickox function by the recurring theme of the juxtaposition of images. These are meta-series, drawing upon all categories of images and brought together in an order/ disorder analogous to that of contact sheets. Separately, the images make perfect sense, but are perplexing in combination. We can guess at bits of meaning that correspond to biographic elements that we already know, but even so the best thing to do would surely be to back off in order to let the meaning wander. When the Mind Hears, Part II is a photographic series crisscrossed with visual rhymes and alternate correspondences. The explanation-or rather the interpretation-will appear by accumulation and through the interlacing of images. Distance becomes pure fiction, and blurriness is similar to the uncertainty of memory. We could also talk about the pulsation of the images according to their size and to the alternation of black or white backgrounds. This kind of composition is not unrelated to the photoengraving work in which April Hickox was involved until recently. When the Mind Hears, Part II recalls Raymonde April’s series entitled De l’autre côté des baisers (1985-86) as well as the recent work of Gaétan Gosselin entitled L’emploi du temps (1991-92). In all of these there is an expression of major life events: Each photographer put together a collection of photographs having an autobiographic event as its central focus and point of departure but that also becomes the basis of a formal study that takes into account the emotions experienced.
 
Related Article :
April Hickox, Looking Glass – Katy McCormick