
About this show
Is blindness, in its broadest sense, the rule or the exception? This March, Gallery 110 presents Hysterical Blindness: Paintings and Mixed Media Collage by Ingrid Sojit. Although the diagnostic label is no longer in use, the term hysterical blindness once referred to a condition in which patients suffer visual impairment in the absence of any known medical cause.
These paintings and collages explore the relationship between eyesight, the physical ability for the eye to see, and vision, the ability of the brain to process what it sees. The term vision has several literal and metaphorical meanings—from a person’s ideological foundation, to their imagined plans for the future, to imagination itself, or even to a supernatural apparition.
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“The idea that vision loss can be a psychological phenomenon touches upon a set of questions that are interesting,” says Sojit. “What do we see when we have lost our ability to recognize what we are seeing? Are dream images, apparitions, and hallucinations an alternative way of seeing?” Human vision is also about our preconceived ideas of the world, our ability to detect patterns, and our need to organize reality in a way that is consistent with our worldview while highlighting irregularities that signal threats to our safety.
Sojit’s works exist between what we see and what we believe about what we are seeing, suggesting that vision itself is never exclusively literal or metaphorical. Pathological lack of vision, hysterical blindness, can be viewed as an inextricable feature of the human condition.

"Self Portrait in the Afterlife":
A Discussion of Symbols and Meanings
This is the second painting in Ingrid's “My Afterlife” series. It is an illustration of how she imagines the experience of an afterlife if she were to assume that an afterlife includes a process of justice and the revelation of truth. Truth and justice may have been obscured by the chaos and confusion of a former terrestrial existence. But now it emerges. Ingrid depicts herself as a serious, and somewhat sad, middle aged female figure against the dark background of the cosmos. She is finally able to remove the mask worn during her terrestrial life, except that this mask is still attached to her dress, thus the mask continues to be part of her. Her eyes are hollowed out. The darkness in the eyes may be a stylistic device. But beneath the figure, a pair of eyeballs are buried beneath the earth, next to them a flower. The idea that the afterlife includes regeneration in the form of plants is central to the afterlife series, hence the flower preparing to emerge. Except for their blue coloring, the wing-like shapes attached to her shoulders look more like leaves than angelic wings—once again, the fusion of plant growth and celestial eternity. To the right we see a profile of a ghostly talking face representing a past of hurtful gossip. To the left the orange figure of a young woman who appears to listen to the ghost face. Here, the color orange represents danger and chaos. The orange figure is perhaps a version of Ingrid's younger self, or perhaps some other female—a daughter, sister, friend.

"Self Portrait in the Afterlife"
Oil on cradled wood panel
20 x 15 x 1.4 inches
2021

"Rise Above": [SOLD]
Beginning the Afterlife Series
“Rise Above” was Ingrid's first painting after many years of exclusively dedicating herself to collage. It is also the painting which launched and guided the My Afterlife Series, an ongoing series of paintings and collages that explore the possibility of an afterlife.
A white bird rises above a confusing array of colorful shapes. Some shapes are familiar, but proportions have changed and nothing is at it once seemed. Large ominous flowers simultaneously symbolize beauty and death while jaded eyeballs keep watch. The bird appears to be safe as he travels through this strange new dimension.
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"Rise Above"
Oil on cradled wood panel
36 x 18 x 1.5 inches
2020