Ice Cube Tray

Isaac Layman

Harborview Medical Center

An image of an ordinary object reveals extraordinary detail.

Picture a classic plastic ice cube tray in exquisite detail, at more than 10 times the size of the real-life object.

Ice Cube Tray, Isaac Layman’s monumental photographic print, hangs behind the reception desk in the lobby of Harborview’s Ninth & Jefferson Building. More than a straightforward image of a mundane object, Ice Cube Tray is the result of 26 photographs digitally collaged together to reveal more detail than the human eye can see—both "hyper-real and entirely fabricated,” Layman says. With its not-quite-frozen ice cubes, the image offers a cool meditation on time, water, and perspective.

Layman prefers not to think of a picture as a window into somewhere else, but as a destination unto itself. Rather than “imagining that you’re looking through a window at a vista,” he explains, “the object has entered the room.”

Based in Seattle, Layman is known for his highly constructed, large-scale photographs of everyday objects. His work pushes the limits of how an image can be constructed while using his immediate surroundings as subject matter. Layman has exhibited at the Walker Art Center, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Frye Art Museum, Blanton Museum of Art, and Norton Museum of Art, among others.

About the Location

Harborview Medical Center

For more than a century, Harborview Medical Center has functioned as a unique community and regional resource. It is a county hospital, a teaching and research institution, a regional trauma and burn center, and the primary health care provider for many low-income and disenfranchised people in the community. Harborview embraces its mission of treating everybody…

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