“Remain Calm” is an artistic venture into Collin Avery’s detailed observation of ordinary spaces and objects that serve an unsettling purpose. Avery’s photography focuses on self-reflection and his connection with particular physical details of spaces. With inspiration from his childhood, the photos demonstrate how he developed ways to escape difficult mental and physical situations. Avery used these “intimate moments of silence” along with self-introspection and a specific way of viewing the ordinary spaces to compose his photographs. Upon first viewing his work, the subjects of the photographs appear as common unnoticed items, but as Collin claims, his images “are not about finding the extraordinary in the everyday, but instead are about finding the everyday extraordinary.” Upon spending time with the photos, one finds himself connected whether by nostalgia, a fleeting glimpse of a memory, feelings of anxiety, confusion and even disgust at the comforting yet repulsive combinations of dreary paneling, quiet pastels, and floral patterns that we know only too well.
