Snapshot: 'Sun screens' (2015), by Penelope Umbrico

Penelope Umbrico, an American artist based in New York, is interested in subjects that tend to be photographed frequently - and whose images can therefore be found scattered across the internet.

Chief among these is the sun, which Umbrico describes as a contradiction: "the measure of all things unreachable and ephemeral", universally reduced to photos which are then shared digitally.

The image above is taken from Shallow Sun, the photographer's most recent exhibition. It is the result of an elaborate chain of photography, in which Umbrico used an iPhone to capture her computer screen, which was covered with sunset images taken from the web. As the notes from her show earlier this year at the Photographers' Gallery in London point out, it is a process that creates, out of the heavily pixilated images, the optical illusion of a moire pattern. In presenting the sun this way, Umbrico aims to offer a "virtual window on to a natural world made un-natural."

This photo will be displayed with other works by Umbrico in a variety of media forms at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut from next Sunday.

'Shallow Sun' is at Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (aldrichart.org) from May 3 to October 25

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