Miami's Life Energy Gets Transposed into 4x6 Photographs

If you stayed at the EDITION Hotel during Miami Art Week, you likely came back from an all-nighter at Soho House to discover an unexpected photographic memento sprawled on your bed. No one (at least maliciously) broke into your hotel room; these found photographs are courtesy of artist Ruvan Wijesooriya, commissioned by the hotel to leave images from his latest series in guest rooms and in public parts of the hotel.

Each of the 17 images to be encountered were inspired by Miami, sometimes in the form of direct, familiar associations like palm trees, bodies of water, and flowers glistening in the sun, but in other moments the images are arguably representative of a sublime, less direct 'essence' of the city, particularly exemplified by a series of Sun dial images, objects that aren't necessarily common in Miami, but whose elegant geometry and heavy balance of shadow and light present a poetic lens into a subjective interpretation of The Magic City.

But despite how strong or indirect the photographic links to Miami may seem, the artist did in fact shoot all of the images in the city (and hotel) they are encountered in: "All of the images were taken on November 15, 2016 at the EDITION. The plants, the idea of the sundial, and getting lost in the details are all local to the EDITION," Wijesooriya tells The Creators Project. "Miami for most people is a place for escape. These images speak to that sense of wanting to drift off."

Even if Miami functions as an idyllic escape for many, the tangibility and purposeful lack of ephemerality of the artist's printed images provide an enduring quality to an otherwise momentary experience, an idea somewhat reflective of his practice at large:

"The inspiration for this project was to find the timelessness in the ordinary, and capture moments that allow people to get lost and dream a little," Wijesooriya reveals. "I love surprising people with art and pictures—gifting 4x6 prints has been how most people first experience my work. I think enough people appreciate the surprise and sentiment, so it's a pleasure to collaborate with EDITION on this project."

Although Art Week Miami's over and there are no more surprising photographs to be encountered, digital images of Ruvan Wijesooriya's delicately sensual photographs can be found here.

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