FACETS are multidimensional portraits made of 35mm negatives cut and spliced back together. With nods towards collage, cubism and surrealism, they inspire a kind of deep looking.
In my early days as a film editor I worked with the film itself, by hand, constructing scenes, shot in pieces, into a whole, compressing and expanding time with each cut. Here it is space and personal essence that is being shaped by the scissors and tape. I never know exactly how they will reassemble. The results are always surprising.
Celluloid is fragile, and violating the negative is anathema to the dogma of photography. I want the dirt, tape marks and fingerprints to be as visible as scars, wrinkles and creases. They are a record of a process as a face is a record of a life, with all the deep-cut grooves of experience.
These works allow me to absorb and truly study my community, looking at every minute detail of their faces as I disassemble and reassemble them. To destroy a thing is to understand a thing; it is a deep meditation.
Although identities of the subject are fractured, the essence of each person always shines through. They are a form of spiritual portraiture.
This project is ongoing.
