For those in the public eye one of the hardest things to do is to find the right balance between public and private. How do you stay 'in' both successfully?
As a result of a napkin drawing of mine being in Time Magazine's Person of the Year issue at the beginning of 2009 I had requests from local media to be interviewed and to write stories on me and the events leading up to the publication. In the course of these interviews I realized I had the opportunity to create artwork that featured these public reporters and anchors in a personal and private way.
I went about asking each person who interviewed me if I could take a series of photos of them and their surroundings that I would then collage into a piece. I had a great response and off I went into the project. I had a number of the participants tell their co-workers about the project and as a result have photographed them as well.
In each case I have tried to distill something private and personal about the person. Not necessarily intimate, just something that is real about them, not something that one would see or know from watching their public personae on TV.
This reality is not an objective one, it is one that is filtered through me and how I perceive the person and the environment I found them in. It isn't what others might think and it isn't even something the person posing for me would even think about themselves.
Each piece has a title starting with the word 'IN'. The intent is to bring the viewer 'in' to that element that I saw as being real. It isn't always obvious, in fact I hope it isn't. I hope you will investigate how the words might apply. You might see how they do, and your interpretation might be close or far from my own intent. That is ok either way. Art that is worth paying attention to always allows the viewer to come away from it understanding it the way they want, not as the artist wishes to impose on the viewer.
