Forensic Portraiture

February 16, 2005

There are more than a few instances of Photo Phazer images serving as the foundation for finished drawings. Some of them have a presence that I can't quantify. They may be crude and jagged, but they express something about those fleeting possibilities for beauty that we so often miss. 

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What is it about an x-ray on the light box that is beautiful? Is it the subconscious reaction to associate anything glowing with the mystical, or is it the subtle colors that ribbon around the junctures of dark emulsion and transparency? Is it the memory of lingering pain behind the molars where the plastic-coated film cut into the gum as radiation hummed behind my ear? Maybe it's just the fact that it generates a memory at all— that this one moment has been elevated to importance among a sea of forgettable days and months.

And does finding the "why" really matter. I love the off kilter composition and macabre implications. It becomes a meditation of mortality; a dualistic record of the transient moment and the timelessness of carbon. It is a self portrait. It is artistic forensics.