‘Despite the fact that the images we see through instruments are virtual in nature, they show us a great deal about the reality in which we live. At the same time, however, we know that they distort that reality, and we are therefore forced to question or interpret our observations.’ - Koen Vanderstukken



Roddick’s work leads us to recognise that a photograph is not an objective document. As Denis Lawson puts it; “photography always transforms what it describes. That’s the art of photography, to control that transformation.” Roddick’s distortion of the glass to create, in effect, a second camera lens, reminds us that the images we consume do not mechanically capture the world as it ‘really is’. Using background images of fashion retail spaces, the original photograph is transformed and superseded by the creation of a second. Her images pass through a series of physical and virtual lenses; the artist’s eye, camera lens, glass object, the captured image on the screen/s, the printed image and finally the viewers eye. Each lens applies its own filter to the image, adding layers of analogue and digital interpretation that ultimately remind us that “the way we see things is affected by what we know or believe”.