With inspiration from cinema and the history of painting this series of twelve photographic self-portraits and three video works is an antithesis to Baudelaire’s famous essay about the need for a painter who can depict the heroism of modern life in the end of 19th Century fin-de siècle France. Portraying the (anti)heroism of the everyday these large panoramic photographs explore representations of the male body and are a comment on the crisis in masculinity, revealing the complexities of contemporary life of a young man and his estranged relations with family, friends and lovers. The photographs is dealing with the theme of the self and are revealing the psychology of the artist at home in private moments which normally are not on display in public. Staged in each of their own, middle-class, domestic and interior spaces they are directly challenging the artist as a hero with particular reference to the work of Édouard Manet, Édouard Vuillard and other early impressionist paintings of the figure - especially representations of the male body and masculinity as seen in the work of Gustave Caillebotte. This body of work attempts to question the genre of self-portraiture and portray the artist’s body both as subject and object.
Tableaux Vivants, an exhibition of photography and video at the Jersey Arts Centre, Saint Helier 1-20 August 2005.
Morgen-Gymnastik I-II and Why, three video pieces part of Tableaux Vivants at the Jersey Arts Centre, Saint Helier 1-20 August 2005.
Still-image of Why, (2005), video, 6 mins