The story of man unfolds in a word, a phrase, the connection between images that propels us forward rhythmically. The story Julia Parris tells is without cynicism. There is no judgment call. No covert typology of man. No safari-like adventure, just space, color and impulse that allows the viewer to breathe with this work.
Man is Man – Julia Clinker
The story of man unfolds in a word, a phrase, the connection between images that propels us forward rhythmically. The story Julia Parris tells is without cynicism. There is no judgment call. No covert typology of man. No safari-like adventure, just space, color and impulse that allows the viewer to breathe with this work.
Enter this environmental portrait and peek into an emotional landscape. The work is charged, lyrical and poignant. There is rawness in this work and its tradition. A photographer is a voyeur and a collector of fragments. An artist’s job is to notice or perceive what is unseen and tell it to the world. Parris tells us about the sticky blue vinyl, cold chain link fences and damp staircases. These are the bits of information that build into a conversation about home, memory and the passage of an artist through the passing of man; man is man.
"Three generations of men in my family worked on steam engine trains. I grew up in the Midwest, revering the huge tanks and smoky whistles." She said. Julia Parris, like artists before her, left the dreary landscape of her industrial home place looking for beauty, discourse and inspiration. She has done what many of us do in our emerging, push our past behind us, trade in our old stomping grounds for new ones and try on a new being.
Sometimes our wandering brings us back with the realization that man is man and that we are all just passing through. Along the way we make our mark. Some individuals will inspire history book writers. We will know them by name. Most remain unrecognized for their deeds but contribute to the collective spirit of man. They are nameless, faceless and transient, a.k.a human kind They leave their warmth on a subway seat, scratch their name in greasy Plexiglas, sweat, rush, bump, herd, litter or leave.
Maybe it’s the brakeman in Julia that led her underground or it could be the sound, smell and grit that pulsates and pushes humanity through its daily course. Maybe it all reminded her of the photos that the men before her shared with her at a young age.
Whatever the impulse that dragged her to it, her exploration of the subway as a passive space. It is not just neutral because she is not looking for a common denominator in order to point to the differences in man and it is not virtual because she is not only documenting transience. It is almost like a police photographer documenting evidence, a scrap of palm sweaty paper, a turnstile under green fluorescence lights or a knitted cap.
