Buff
‍1999-2006

Please note, there are two iterations of this work. The first, 1999-2005, is based on appropriated imagery while the second, 2005-2006 is based on live model shoots. As a result, the prints of the second are larger.

Memory casts the past as gone and missing. Longing for what is lost and lacking what completes us, is reinforced by consumer culture. Absence is a fundamental force from which we run and into which we descend in the same gesture. One only needs to alter perception slightly to see how present this phenomenon is.
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For example, in the exercise of Buff, the commonplace is rendered abstract by denying the image its original function. A void replaces what is expected. Buff does not have to be based on pornography, but because its intended function is simple, explicit and aligned with urge, the viewing dynamic is thus easily manipulated. Ironically, it is because pornography suggests participation that we can observe the phenomenon of stimulation in a more heighten fashion. Through proxy we can engage in abstraction.
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While in most cases Buff is clearly erotic, one finds oneself appreciating the image in ways not common to pornography. This is an effect of abstraction. The color palette, the interaction of light and shadow, negative space, and references to art history contribute to an unexpected beauty. The lines between several dualities become apparent and blurred at once. The background and the subject (foreground), the refined and the crude, the private and the public, and the present and the absent, are exposed as constructs for the viewer to redefine. The viewer is witnesses the dynamic equilibrium between perceiver and perceived. The mere opportunity to alter a conditioned response deconstructs the act of observation as well as the process of abstraction itself.

What do you think?