Wipe Outs, 1986
Since 1982, I have been exposing the front object with flash, moving in close, using an extreme wide angle lens, very often looking for overt and subtle displays of affection - touching, kissing and other aspects of human contact. These acts on the one hand seem saccharin, on the other, compassionate in a dispassionate world. I assault these acts in a visually and tonally aggressive manner in order to gain an emotional and intellectual dichotomy - an uncanny tension I construct to reach and disturb the viewer.
The surface grit of the image, the imperfections, the disorganized raster lines lend visual static to the physical and emotional content of the picture. I derive an additional emotional state through wiping-out a human being's individuality by eliminating skin tone and details in the foreground while the background interprets the world in normal size and tonality creating an illusion of "real life." Yet the subjects do have autonomy in their changes of position during the lapsed time between my decision to photograph and pressing the shutter release. The difference between what I saw and what I photographed is a gift of a missed moment..
Murals for Baxter / Travenol Labs
