I experience the photographs in Cate Wnek’s project Reverie like I do my dreams. They are reminiscent of the imagery that flickers on my eyelids as I wake. Her narratives are built with the ephemeral logic of sleep, where understanding is more sensed than known. Unraveling them is like trying to hold onto a dream- even as I pull a scene into my conscious mind and attempt to hold it in place, I lose parts of it. I am already beginning to forget something that I knew so clearly in my sleep. 

Here, it is uncertain if the people, plants and animals are exploding with vivacity or decomposing into the darkness. Both light and shadow have such an intensity that they seem like life forces vying for air to swallow. I imagine the silky darkness slowly creeping in from the edge of an inky field, or up the base of a spine, trying to soak its way towards the surface. Here, people gather shadows in their hands and little birds glow as if they swallowed the sun.

- Mia Dalglish

See more of Cate Wnek’s work here.