Strangely Attracted: Art as Life, Life as Art

My photographic impulses have long been influenced by the spontaneity of street photography.  When I select a subject, I watch, waiting for expressive gestures that translate verbal communication into visual language. These are my decisive moments. In museums, this attraction to the gesture has translated into another kind of hunt. Standing before a canvas, I home in on details where I can frame multiple hands. Removed from the context of the whole, the resulting image can be both expressive and mysterious.

Strangely Attracted is a series of paired images that synthesize these two photographic impulses.  As I find correspondences between photographs of the quotidian and details of fine art paintings, I discover latent possibilities. Everyday life becomes elevated and worthy of note.  The painted hands take on a hint of familiarity—more akin to the everyday.  The resulting composition, the diptych, creates a space where conversation takes place.