Artist's Statement
Sub-Urban Shadow-Plays is a series of collaborative, photomedia portraits, mostly of close friends, and friends of friends. I asked them to bring some meaningful objects (from any part of their lives) to a pre-arranged photo shoot in a studio. I told them not to worry about make-up and not to wear anything special because they would have had to take it off when they got behind the screen.
Some people found it very confronting to be asked to be in a photo naked and took quite a while to make the decision to participate. Others just said NO straight away. And others still didn’t even wait for me to finish putting the question before they accepted.
Once they agreed to participate and well before the photo session, I discussed the project with each person or couple. We talked about what they would bring and its significance to them, or if they wanted me to get or make a special prop. Some people just brought one or two items and others brought a trailerload. The number of things people brought has not been an issue. I worked with whatever they brought, a bit like a stage director may set up or direct a play. In fact, once people were in the studio, I asked them to get on ‘the stage’, a platform a few centimetres off the floor I set up behind the screen. The whole area where people undressed was screened off and provided privacy.
Like most art projects I embark on, I start out without really knowing where I’m going to finish. That’s one of the joys of being answerable only to yourself. It’s not necessarily a matter of not knowing what I’m doing, although sometimes I have my doubts. It’s more a case of starting with a germ of an idea and letting it take me for a walk.
Occasionally the idea is so perfectly well formed right at the start, an immaculate conception, so to speak, that the execution can be a bit of a drag. Most times though, it’s a long drawn out affair, working things out and making things up on the fly until something coalesces that I am happy with. This project followed the latter pattern.
What I wanted to do originally with this project was to photograph couples in long term relationships (20 years or more) and I wanted to photograph them “worts and all”. I wanted to ask them what it was that had kept them in the relationship for such a long time and I wanted to print that information with the photograph. After the first few sessions other things started to happen which seemed more interesting. The things that I had asked people to bring to the shoot were creating little stories all of their own and talking about their owners in unusually interesting ways. Suddenly I was lured into thinking I was a theatre director controlling life on a stage. I liked that idea.
Even though people came well prepared I was always on the lookout for something spontaneous and unplanned to happen, something unexpected. And a few times, it did.
A few of my sitters asked me why I required people to be naked for the portraits. My answer was that, as an artist, I find the contours of the human body inherently beautiful, regardless of age. But clothes can be a camouflage used to shield and protect our bodies from the world. We hide behind and inside our clothes and we hardly ever get, or want, the chance to show off what nature has given us. Most of us never seem to completely accept our body image as it is. We are always on the way to somewhere else with it.
If you like what you see and can imagine yourself naked behind a screen, I am keen to pursue this project in the coming months, so contact me to discuss a portrait.
MC, 2005
