| In my photographs, I skate upon the friction between the rational and the emotional. A consistent engagement in this conflict of meaning has been propelling me forward since the beginning. What I’ve culled from this process is an idiosyncratic combination of the objective, documentary photography style characteristic of the Düsseldorf School (evidenced in my earlier Europa series and subsequent California Missions photo-sculptures) and the subjective, performance-based style that originated in the work of Joseph Beuys and Sigmar Polke and was found later in the work of Anna and Bernhard Blume. What makes these photographs particularly distinctive is the filtering of these particular scenes and moments through my politically charged vision of Africa. | 
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Todd Gray
Todd Gray, Shaman Series, 2006. Archival dye print, acrylic. Courtesy of the artist.In my photographs, I skate upon the friction between the rational and the emotional. A consistent engagement in this conflict of meaning has been propelling me forward since the beginning.
What I’ve culled from this process is an idiosyncratic combination of the objective, documentary photography style characteristic of the Düsseldorf School (evidenced in my earlier Europa series and subsequent California Missions photo-sculptures) and the subjective, performance-based style that originated in the work of Joseph Beuys and Sigmar Polke and was found later in the work of Anna and Bernhard Blume. What makes these photographs particularly distinctive is the filtering of these particular scenes and moments through my politically charged vision of Africa.
In 2005, I traveled to Ghana for an exhibition at the Goethe Institute in Accra. Smitten by the experience, I returned a year later, bought land, and built a studio in the western region of that country. Now I leave my home in Los Angeles and return to that studio twice a year. The impact on my life and work has been profound.
I began the Shaman Series in 2003 as a series of self-portraits. These images are records of the private, ritualistic performances I carried out in the studio. By bringing the simple act of shaving—a ritual of social convention—into an emotionally and physically agitated realm, these works embody the mysticism and affinity with nature espoused by the African Animists and the visceral expressionism of the Viennese Actionists such as Arnulf Rainer.
The lather mask nearly suffocates and blinds me, becoming a metaphor for white power on the first, elementary read. However, for the more attentive viewer, other associations quickly open up, such as Freud’s investigations of the unconscious, a reversal of the black face minstrel, or the problematic history of Western viewpoints concerning non-Western or “primitive” art forms.
When I’m in Africa I take this performance ritual out of the confines of the studio and into the bush. I slather my naked body with shaving foam, encountering curious villagers and flipping cultural polarities in the process. A so-called modern African returns home from the Diaspora as a neo-primitive, while local villagers look up in wonder, pause for a moment, then resume texting on their cell phones.
