Illuminated

"Illuminated" is a series of portraits of teenagers, capturing their faces as they inhabit the digital realm. The only illumination by which they are defined is the light cast by their cell phones—glowing streams of information from text messages, Facebook pages, and phone calls. We are interested in what the engagement with the flow of information looks like from the outside, what being social looks like today. Due to the small scale and low power of the light source, the exposures were necessarily long, creating a softness of detail that hearkens back to the extended sittings for daguerreotypes.

Then, closing the loop, we've given these portraits to each of the models to use as their profile picture on facebook, and the light from these images goes back into the recursive stream of illumination emanating from ubiquitous, ever-present screens.  It was our intention to title each image with the sitter's latest status update, but in a telling comment on the mercurial nature of the digital age, it seemed that no one was particularly interested in status updates any more, and no one had posted one recently. The titles are therefore culled from previous posts and comments found within each person's profile.

The Illuminated series is executed as a collaboration between Virgil Taylor and me.

Velvets

In my work in velvet I begin with the skin—the light it reflects, the shadows it casts, and the unique details etched either by age or tattoo needle, and I seek to make those elements palpable. Velvet is made of rayon pile on a silk mesh. With the screened application of a cellulose-specific caustic, the pile is dissolved, leaving the mesh behind. This process results in an image etched into the fabric, light areas made translucent, shadows made of lush texture. The portrait casts a shadow. What begins as an intimate image of a friend or family member ends as a mural-sized icon of bone and skin, all of the hollows and folds and designs brought into high relief. The works are an exploration of the human body and a metaphor for its continuing metamorphosis. This is work you are welcome to touch.

Pixies

The Pixies series is an examination of the fleeting moment, the pose too precarious to maintain for long. My models are pre-teen contortionists, possessed of an ephemeral youth often disguised by stage makeup and the maturity required to endure painful training. I am preserving a moment in a young girl’s life while alluding to the changes, both internal and external, that must constantly be overcome in the brief career of a circus performer. This series of portraits spans several years, begun while the youngest member of the troupe was seven. She is now twelve and the Pixies are performers with the Cirque du Soleil.