If Disney made a live-action Little Mermaid, keeping all the overly bright, chipper colors of the animated version but adhering faithfully to Hans Christian Andersen’s cruel original tale, a scene like the one in Ericka Beckman’s Boundary Figures photograph might appear. The crumpled feminine figure, laid out in some kind of cove and wearing something pink and scaly, might be the mermaid after she’s sacrificed herself for love. The photograph, made by smart, genre-bending Beckman in 1989, hangs as one in a series of three at Cherry & Martin. The others include a scarecrow in shadows and an ethereal figure who’s half geisha, half jellyfish. Spotlights come on and focus on one image at a time, with specific soundtracks played for each. It’s the incredible competence with which Beckman has executed these eerie, not-quite-comprehensible situations that makes them so memorable.
