Imagine a single frame clipped from a film reel. The minute celluloid image captures a scene where actors have not yet appeared, or perhaps have already left. There may be uncertainty whether there are actors at all, yet, something in the scene indicates that an event is about to take place. Or is it the outcome we see?

As we peer into the miniscule worlds of Dante Brebner’s dioramas, the flat image we’ve imagined has grown three-dimensional. Landscapes and interiors now appear as tiny film sets tailored for a peculiar dream where time remains elusive. A script has not been written: scenarios are ambiguous, unresolved. The titles offer even less of a foothold. Here the artist does not tell a story, but only suggests that one exists. Once introduced, we are left to do all the navigating.

Some physical effort is also required to observe the work. Concentration is focused through a matchbox sized window into a compressed and layered space. Features are hidden at far angles and odd spots. The scene cannot be read all at once, nor can it be read casually. Stooping, moving back and forth, one adjusts continuously around the incongruously small opening while searching for details.

But it is at this moment between physicality and the slippery, ambiguous nature of the scenes depicted that we are invited to put aside a solution to the artist’s work and enter a kind of state where curiosity alone is given priority, our own auras of association may be called forth. Exploring, synthesizing possibilities, we arrive at a precipice: We stare, we wonder and realize that the artist who has taken us there has left us alone.