03.30 — 05.10.25
Devening Projects is pleased to present The Door Opens the Other Way, Oregon-based artist Mike Bray’s first solo exhibition with Devening Projects. The exhibition opens on Sunday, March 30 and continues until May 10, 2025.
Mike Bray’s work navigates the intersection of cinema, materiality, and perception. His practice investigates how visual narratives are constructed and how technology—particularly cameras—shapes our understanding of reality. He deconstructs cinematic elements and recontextualizes time, frame by frame, to expand and collapse the spectacle inherent in film. He is particularly interested in moments when cinematic illusions are broken, inviting viewers to question the boundaries between the screen and the physical world.
Bray’s fascination extends to the internal mechanics of cameras—the movement of light through lenses, mirrors, and prisms. This curiosity has led him to reconfigure these optical components in his sculptural works, creating pieces that reorder conventional sequences and perceptions. In The Door Opens the Other Way, a quote borrowed from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, Bray’s new work explores the camera and lens for sculptural moments, while juxtaposing them with imagery from the film. The camera’s reflex mirror operates on a hinge between here and there, touching on narrative threads about leaving nature and lived experience for a looping simulation.
Through these explorations, Bray encourages viewers to reconsider the act of seeing—not merely as passive observation but as active engagement with the tools and processes that shape visual experience. By manipulating the physical elements of image-making, he explores how light and image formation influence perception. His work prompts reflection on the trust we place in technological mediators and the potential distortions they introduce into our understanding of reality.
Mike Bray (b. Woodridge, Illinois) is based in Eugene, Oregon. Bray has exhibited at venues such as Fourteen30 Contemporary in Portland, Oregon, and the Institute of Visual Art at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Underscoring his commitment to fostering art communities, he co-founded and is now the Artistic Director of Ditch Projects, an artist-run space in Springfield, Oregon, and is a founding member of the Coast Time Artist Residency in Lincoln City, Oregon.
