| Remember when it was okay to color outside of the lines in a coloring book? Remember when it was fine to paint a blue sun just for the hell of it? |  |
Logan Riley
Remember when it was okay to color outside of the lines in a coloring book? Remember when it was fine to paint a blue sun just for the hell of it? And what about the unassuming stick figure that was perfectly obvious who it was to you but no one else? What happened? Why, when we grow up, do we stop this creative freedom, why do we stop thinking outside of the box and rigidly stay in the lines?
Not all of us do.
The fifth of June saw a successful night for the firs-time curator Nick Taucher as the show Unframed Portraits: The Self and Others opened at the Broadway Gallery NYC in SoHo, New York. Unframed Portraits brought together nine artists who are all living and working in the New York area, all breaking the history-rigid notion of portraiture. Like painting that blue sun or disregarding the coloring book lines, these nine artists bring various styles from painting to photography to overcome history, and to recover that child-like creativity of pure art. Not just focusing on technique and materials, these portraits pierce the surface of the simple persona—prying at something deeper, something behind the eyes—an internal self. Possibly the true self.
With her images Debbie, Grandpa Whiskers, and Kat (from the self-portrait series Say Cheese!) photographer Signe Pierce brings a comical approach to the self-portrait genre. Evoking the nostalgia of school pictures and bringing out different characters she shows us that the individual is really a collection of influences and snippets of collected personalities. Like Signe, photographer Fred Lee uses a unique approach to the photographic self-portrait with pieces such as Holding My Breath and his iPhone series. Fred Lee has brought portraiture to the technological forefront. History now follows the path of paint to photography to phone. His image Holding My Breath is akin to breaking the theatrical fourth wall, an image of an image of the artist himself. Eric Kaczmarcyzk takes his photography to a different level, not looking at the self as the artist, but the self as the subject. His images explore the relationship between the artist and the subject, looking for something behind the simple form of portrait to something deeper within the model or subject.
In New York by way of Russia and Philadelphia Valeriya Volkova is like a mix between French symbolist poetry and the illustrations from a Richard Scary book. Her pictures have vibrant colors, and seem completely harmless, except maybe a cyclist is a teen Minotaur or some giants taking a nap. Mixing in muted, dull-toned colors with black, white, and a splash of vibrant color is Corey-Gerard Little. His portraits and World at Bay show a great understanding of a multitude of media as well as a good grasp of the individuality of each person. Using whatever they can find or whatever the project needs are artists Elliot de Cesare and Virginia Bouzakis, both using their artworks to experiment and explore process and object/subject relationships.
The unknowing portrait can be one of the most powerful as well as the unplanned. Photographers Monica L. Shulman and Corey Presha know this. From his series Simple Comforts Presha brings us everyday people in their everyday lives, and most of these photos leave us smiling. His photos have a kindness to them, something that makes you want to laugh and smile as you look over them, not just admire the craft. Monica L. Shulman brings everyday people as well, but her photography mirrors her scenery—the street. Rough, hardcore, perfectly capturing her subjects, she gives us people as they are, as you would see them if you just walked by on the street. Nothing pretty, nothing fancy, just the real true self.
There are always rules in life. A self-portrait is a portrait of the self that is given. But what is art if not the breaking of old rules to fully express oneself. Coloring out of the lines is as important as staying inside them. In or out, it’s still your expression.
