Todd Carpenter’s newest series “In the Spaces Between” brings us a new way of seeing the world around us. His work brings new meaning to the phrase “can’t see the forest for the trees”, recognizing our tendency to consider a subject for only its material parts.

We categorize, organize, and reduce things into their utility, or disutility. Snap judgements define how we see and interpret the world. As a result, what we see becomes less and less of what really is and is replaced by a shallow projection of what each individual thing means to us. Our affinity for labels and the search for belonging within only a few superficial restrictive categories leaves many feeling isolated and alone, inhibiting our view to those around us.

Carpenter reminds us through the quiet resilience of a single beam of light, marching steadily through the arms of a tree, to appreciate a subject’s surroundings as well as the subject itself.