|
 |
| Woody, New York, 1992. Silver gelatin print from Polaroid negative, courtesy of Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina. |
Marsha Burns:
Portrait of America
Artist Statement
Photography is potentially the most representational of mediums, and yet it is also a language of sign that must be read by the viewer. My work follows a vast history of human depiction in purely visual terms. These terms are conditioned by time, place and cultural values. My portraits describe my subject in a style that makes a statement about existence. They make tangible my perceptions, and the evidence is in the image.
The people I choose to photograph are often those for whom negative or tragically simple attitudes have been formed by the majority of society. In an age of technology and urbanization I am drawn to the boundaries, to people whose existence is self-defined. I look for people who can’t or don’t want to fit. I also photograph the heroic as I define it, and sometimes I photograph someone because I’m attracted to the way he or she looks. My subjects struggle to understand their existence, and my work attempts to describe the manifestations of this struggle in a personal style.
Using a 4 x 5 camera with a backdrop imposes a formality on the process. I sometimes show my subjects copies of the work so they can see the nature of my work and perhaps my expectations. My motivations are simple and I communicate that to my subject so as to gain the trust that is essential to the image. I believe that my subjects are important and they know that. Also, I know that most people are curious about how they seem to another person. A photograph can document that and satisfy the question, "What do I look like to one who doesn’t know me, but likes the way I look?"
The "frame" in the finished work is evidence of the Polaroid process and imposes a subtle internal border; the perforated top border and the degraded edges are a graphic signifier of the subject bound by technology and the synthetic nature of the medium that the artist is bound to.
-- Marsha Burns
|
|
|
