TRYING BEAUTY
Photo of Dried and Cracked Mud (2025) by Camilla Howalt
On Perspective, Texture, and In-Between Spaces
The image of cracked, dried mud serves as a compelling entry point into the exploration of perspective, liminality, and the interrelationship between texture and colour.
These elements do not exist in isolation. Rather, they form a dynamic interplay in visual composition. Texture and colour are not merely coexisting visual phenomena - they actively inform and alter one another. Colour lends emotional charge to texture, while texture grounds colour in physicality, transforming it from a surface attribute into an embodied presence. This interdependence generates a layered experience that is both visual and tactile.
Texture, in particular, transcends the confines of the visual. It introduces a deeper dimension - one that speaks to the somatic and emotional registers of the viewer. The perception of texture initiates a kind of sensory crossover. What is seen also begins to feel as though it can be touched. This tactile suggestion fosters a visceral engagement, where the work is no longer passively observed but sensed, experienced, and inhabited.
In this context, texture becomes an agent of disruption and invitation. It unsettles expectations and constructs quiet tension within the visual field. Like a needle piercing fabric, the textured surface opens space - sometimes gently, sometimes abrasively - for new forms of perceptual and emotional interaction. These surfaces resist closure. They evoke what might be called 'in-between spaces' - areas of ambiguity, transition, and potential. Such liminal zones encourage viewers to dwell in the uncertainty between what is immediately perceptible and what lies beneath or beyond it.
Thus, perspective is not simply a matter of vantage point or spatial arrangement. It is shaped by the affective and sensory qualities of the work - by how colour and texture speak to one another and to the viewer. In this way, perspective becomes relational, formed not by the image alone but through the dynamic experience of encountering it.
