Clint Baclawski
MFA ’08 Photography
Adjunct Professor + The Lab Manager
Sisyphus is a kinetic photographic sculpture inspired by the Greek myth of eternal labor and repetition. As my first single-scroll work, the piece centers on a massive glacial erratic discovered along a trail in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Illuminated from within, the boulder continuously tumbles through space, appearing to move either uphill or downhill depending on the direction of the scroll. The image never fully resolves. Instead, it exists in a perpetual cycle of motion, struggle, and return.
Working with a single large-format photograph as source material, I use light, mechanics, and duration to expand photography beyond the static image. The illuminated scroll transforms the landscape into an unfolding event where time becomes inseparable from the act of viewing. The work reflects my ongoing interest in duality and mirrored perception, rooted in my experience growing up as an identical twin. In Sisyphus, ascent and descent collapse into one another, suggesting that perseverance and futility may ultimately occupy the same terrain.
By reconfiguring photographic materials into sculptural form, the piece considers repetition not simply as a burden, but as a condition of being alive.
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Clint Baclawski is a contemporary artist whose work merges photography, light, and technology to create immersive installations that challenge perception and redefine space. Working with large-format analog film, LED illumination, and sculptural materials, he expands photography beyond the frame into architectural experience. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Museum Belvédère and SPRING/BREAK Art Show, with commissions for Google Cambridge, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Eastern Bank.
