Psycho Portraits (The Body in the Picture ), 1993-1995
Subject with Jesse Norman
Series of 21; C print photographs, line drawing and text, each 40” x 30”
Psycho-Portraits are made from autobiographical and public domain pictures that each subject participant chose from his/her personal collection. The portraits evoke social and psychological layers of identity.
For each portrait, images are projected from two or three slide projectors to overlap onto a cinema screen or wall. The subject moves spatially across the path of multiple projections – his/her body acting as a matting devise to block parts of projected light, fragmenting, obscuring, and re-composing relationships between the static projections. It is the subject’s moving body that activates the images.
The artist stands behind the projectors watching through a camera to track the moving subject, his/her body shadows and the resulting mutating projected images. When she sees a compelling relationship she calls “freeze”. The subject holds her/his position and the photograph is taken. Each portrait is informed by a map outline that identifies layers of images by name and date.