Surfaced
Washed Out, Graphite on paper, 50 x 50 inches
Obscured, Graphite on paper, 50 x 38 inches
Ooze, Graphite on paper, 24 x 24 inches
Slathered, Graphite on paper, 50 x 38 inches
Cream, Graphite on paper, 38 x 38 inches
Trickle, Graphite on paper, 24 x 24 inches
Smeared, Graphite on paper, 50 x 38 inches
Blocked, Graphite on paper, 50 x 67 inches
Crested, Graphite on paper, 50 x 50 inches
Luminescence #1, Graphite on paper, 50 x 50 inches
Night Look, Graphite on paper, 38 x 38 inches
Luminescence #2, Graphite on paper, 50 x 50 inches
Xerox, in the studio, six 50 x 38 inch graphite drawings, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, 2011
2012-2013
“Surfaced” acknowledges the relationship between photography, painting and drawing in portraiture. I take photographs as I paint and pour liquids onto myself, using my face as a canvas. The photo shoot references the practice of drawing and painting; then the final graphite drawing references photography. The boundaries between the mediums are broken down and the processes are interwoven.
The images depart from the framing of traditional portraiture. The viewer is not given an entire bust of the subject, rather the frame zooms into up-close sections of the face. The cropping pushes the face to the surface of the paper, making the figure more ambiguous. Flesh becomes abstracted: obliterated by paint on the skin, distorted by the eye of the camera lens, or smeared by the glass of a Xerox machine.