The Show Is Open

Here I am at my show at Gallery Kayafas. That's one of the pictures behind me, of course, proof that the show is really happening. I've been writing my gallery talk, which I'll give this Thursday (October 25, 2012) at about seven. Caleb Cole will be speaking, too. It should be an interesting juxtaposition, since I'll be talking a little bit about identity and more about non-identity and my non-portraits.

Detail: IR, 2010, 57 x 42 inches.

The show opens tomorrow. I'm giving a talk on Thursday October 25 and I'll be at the First Friday reception on November 2.

"...like a masterful broom, his new book had scattered the dust long settled on the subject of identity, and swept it into exciting new piles."

— Edward St. Aubyn
Some Hope

I've been reading The Patrick Melrose novels. They may sound fancy and English but they are also gritty and bleak, heartbreaking and funny. In addition to naffs, tossers, and toffs (I'm never sure what these words mean), the narrator talks about consciousness quite a bit, and this line jumped out at me they way things do when you feel they resemble something about you. This is just what my work is doing!

MH

This is a picture that will be in my show Strangers (Gallery Kayafas, Boston, October 19 to November 24, 2012). I did most of the works in 2010, but this is one from the end of the summer. It combines incompatible emotions on one face--an angry eye and a sad one, in addition to other distortions of scale, perspective, and emotion. I think of them as non-portraits, since I think these pictures are just barely connected to their sitters. The people are almost unrecognizable. But I've come to think that they are connected even though they are greatly changed. I think this line of argument is called essentialism in philosophy

This is self-portrait. I did it to go along with the rest of my Strangers series, which is one way of looking at the face. But I've been experimenting with looking at faces in other unusual ways, and mine is the most available. I thought I might show this with the Strangers, but decided not to. I want to work on it and related projects some more. I may call my next show "Me Time," by the way. I have several other takes on the subject, but I like this animated version best. Meanwhile, later on today I'm taking the prints for Strangers down to Gallery Kayafas in Boston's South End so they can install it during the week. The show opens October 19, 2012.