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2012 Skin

Space

Skin is a series of large-scale, highly detailed portraits of the hands of people very close to me. Our hands are in constant contact with the rest of the world, more worn and creased than anywhere else on the body apart from perhaps the feet (another favourite subject matter of mine). They are tough yet sensitive, dexterous and yet somehow vulnerable, and highly demonstrative of complex emotions. Through constant wear they bear the inscriptions of our life experience, our passions and fears and memories layered over one another like a palimpsest.

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 I believe the physical self must surely be considered the starting point for all psychological understanding: it is the vehicle for the emotions and the tool through which our inner psyche is able to manifest itself and interact with the world. But this interaction goes both ways: the world also leaves its mark upon the body. I closely examine the lines and creases, the patterns and scars that are unique to each individual, exploring and tracing the surface of the skin, a surface that constantly changes from the moment we are born. Stretching, shrivelling, creasing and cracking as we move through the stages of our lives, it serves as a topographical map of everything that has ever happened to us. I search for the precious memories that linger in the fingertips, and discover the momentarily forgotten pain of loss in the creases of the knuckles. I am privileged to examine so closely the minute details of another’s physical body to an extent that they themselves will never do, and hope that I am able to tell their story truthfully and sensitively.

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