Not An Exit

• Photographer
  Austin Irving
• Technical Info
  Kodak Portra 160 Iso 4x5 Film Shot With A Toyo Field Camera

NOT AN EXIT is a collection of large format photographs that proposes a closer examination of the nondescript interiors that we routinely pass through; doorways and hallways, spaces intended for movement but here, somehow appear impenetrable. Irving transforms these dead ends into studies on the architecture—spatial and psychological—of confinement, straddling the boundary of absurdist and unsettling. Both banal and bizarre, the Kafkaesque quirks and the illusionistic geometry of these locations draw the eye deep into the picture, only to be thwarted in its progress through the space.

Born and raised in New York City, Austin Irving is a visual artist who works with large format analog photography. Irving graduated cum laude with a BFA from the Department of Photography and Imaging at NYU’s TISCH School Of The Arts in 2006. Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries and museums in Hong Kong, India, Germany, France, and across The United States. In 2020, her projects SHOW CAVES and NOT AN EXIT won first place at The Budapest International Foto Awards in the Science and Architecture categories. In 2019, NOT AN EXIT and PLANTS IN EXILE won the PX3 award.