Portraits are vestiges of life as it is desired, dreamed of, and ultimately lost. What appears in these portraits is an inanimate body; a body in tension, irrational, uncomfortable, and even strange. It is a body without time, without history, and without narrative. These portraits allow the viewer to be confronted with an introspective gaze that reduces them to traces of themselves. Having to live in isolation to take care of my health and physical wellness carried with it a challenge not just to my life, but to the people I love and share joy with everyday. In this way, the loneliness and uncertainty of this time acquired importance in the bodies of familiar people; faces seemed to disappear due to this scenario in which we are treated as masses, where the singularity of the subject disappears within familiar spaces like homes and workplaces that gradually become suffocating and unrecognizable. --Label design by exhibit curator Nancy DeJoy. Labels written by Ben Lash and his team in consultation with artist statements.
