Mixed Media
WORKING PAPER: TODD BARTEL AND JACK MASSEY AT HERA GALLERY
As expected from the complex minds of Todd Bartel and Jack Massey comes “working PAPER,” an exhibition that counterpoints two visually different styles of collage art, that are the same in their intellectually challenging requirement. In “working PAPER,” Bartel presents his signature mode — substantially worked, layered, beautiful and soulful vintage papers from a variety of literary sources requiring focused and physical reading from the viewer, while Massey does the opposite — engage the viewer with emotive minimalism with carefully and simply collaged mixed media, also worked papers, requiring playfulness and calm contemplation.
Bartel bombards the reader with real physical content, while Massey hits his viewers with open-ended questions. Overall, the exhibition theme is landscape: external for Bartel, through direct connective points; internal for Massey, with subtle and private clues.
From the exhibition statement: “Through juxtaposing definitions with period ephemera, Bartel explores the notion of land and land use as well as the history of landscape painting. Massey is committed to form and line exploration in the purest sense. A sense of amused improvisation emerges from these pieces.”
Jack Massey’s minimalist mixed media collage compositions are 13 in the series. They consist of various discarded and worked papers, fabric remnants, image cutouts, text fragments, and drawings, and are monumental in intellectual possibility and mystery. Formally, the series is about collage as a three-dimensional interpretation of geometric abstract painting and sculpture. Each composition is staged on a sheet of irregular off-white paper which has a dual purpose: as foundation for individual focused collages placed on top, and as another element layer of visual, material, and conceptual content.
What is most important about Massey’s collages in where the ‘top collage’ in placed on the off-white paper. Most of the ‘top collages’ are off-center allowing for large areas of ‘void’ space to live as information and material fields. In regard to meaning, the compositions are structured to offer vague reminiscence to reality. The narrative content, if there is any other than pure material form and geometry, has been reduced to basic arrangement with only ‘leftover’ material of what may have or is real.
Each composition has a title that is as curious as the image offering tricky answers. To understand, it’s absolutely necessary to pay close attention to material details that may seem irrelevant, such as where the torn edges meet, or where colored dots are placed, or where frayed fabric lines are allowed to sit. Massey leaves the narrative up to the reader/ viewer to interpret. Simple titles such as “Why”; “Try Not to Look Back – Ever”; and “There is No Answer for Everything” do suggest firm solutions to the abstracted collages. For example, in “There is No Answer for Everything,” two rectangular sheets of decaying and yellowed paper are placed vertical alongside each other so that the ragged torn lines match up to each other with the top corner edges closer to each other evoking the idea that the papers are speaking to one another.
Underneath the papers, in landscape position, is a discarded, heavily decayed colored fabric remnant onto which a very thin strip of yellow paper is laid lengthwise on the very bottom suggesting a foundational boundary. What’s happening here is unknown, but given the arrangement and the title, the answer could be that “There is No Answer for Everything” is a dialogue within a domestic space. The tonality of privacy and allusion to intimacy is felt in each composition. It’s interesting that Massey dedicates the series to his wife “I dedicate, with love, my part of this show to my wife Susan. Massey is a professor emeritus at Rhode Island School of Design, and is generally described as an abstract or conceptual artist working in a variety of areas including sculpture. His work is always about the narrative content of pure form.
Q & A: JACK MASSEY
JFM: IS THERE A MUSICAL INSPIRATION TO YOUR COLLAGES
JM: I often listen to jazz while I am working. There have been times in the past when the music has influenced my work in one way or another. However, my work in the current show was not influenced by music. The pieces simply came together as I worked with the paper.
JFM: THE PLACEMENT OF THE SPECIFIC COLLAGE WORKS WITHIN THE WHITE PAPER SPACE/VOID SPACE SEEMS PLANNED AND PURPOSEFUL. IS THE WHITE VOID ANOTHER ELEMENT?
JM: Yes. The white space is a purposeful part of the collage. It’s as important to me as the other elements.
JFM: THE TITLES FOR EACH COMPOSITION ARE INTRIGUING. WHAT COMES FIRST: THE TITLES OR THE COLLAGE?
JM: The collages always come first. Then, once they’re finished, I intuitively invent a title that often I find amusing. The viewers can interpret the title and the work any way they wish. I provide clues but not answers.
Bartel’s “Landscape Vernacular” is 11 works with poetically educative titles taken directly from or inspired by published old book sources and assembled paper material, borrowing and giving homage to a wide variety of historical events, art movements, philosophical theories, spiritual considerations, and scientific discoveries. They are:
A Journey (After A. D.)
All That Part of a Picture Which is Not of Body or Argument
Promise and Threat (Terror Comes After Territory)
Dog Star Rising
Set Apart or Belonging to An Individual or People
Gateway to the American Sublime — The Crawford Notch, 1826
Animas Hominis
Proportions and Table Manners
Sublime Climate
Water Over the Bridge
Common Geography — The Earth and It’s Inhabitants, August 9, 2019
Most, not all, of Bartel’s collages are image and text heavy requiring in-depth discussion. For him, the purpose of collage is to celebrate the beautiful tactile quality of fragments as perfect pieces of ‘living paper’ that can function alone visually as works of art, and are even more energetic when combined with other decaying and transitioning fragments. When these fragments are combined, an intellectual environment/sublime space is created that seduces viewers into a new world of mystery.
To engage the viewer fully, Bartel has included another element into the landscape collages — sound. To compose his unique landscapes, for the exhibition, he’s united each collage composition with a complementary musical piece creating remarkably satisfying and deeply moving experiences. While looking at the collage, the viewer can listen to music via QR Codes scanned by iPhone, directed to a website.
For example, the first composition in the exhibition, which holds special significance for Bartel, “A Journey (After A.D.),” 2011, is staged with Arvo Part’s “Tabula Rasa – II (Silentium),” 1977. The collage piece itself offers a text fragment from what appears to be a dictionary source: “Land: to set to shore; to disembark; to debark” while the full composition image is a large area of open space, a series of puncture marks in a shape resembling an abstracted human body as if falling through air, while at the bottom are fragments of marbleized papers functioning as water with a sun icon at the bottom middle.
Of special note is a ‘star’ shaped puncture near the human body form suggesting the lovely idea that humans are ‘star dust.’ The musical component by Arvo Part offers violin, piano, and chamber orchestra evoking a feeling of alternating tumbling and floating, slow and dramatic, rasping and burning in parts, as if moved, pushed, and torn by air currents, matching perfectly with the ethereal and textured visuals in Bartel’s paper collage, “A Journey.” The other must listen piece is Aphex Twin’s “Blue Calx,” matched up with Bartel’s “Promise and Threat (Terror Comes After Territory)” a collage suggesting the often-forgotten history of Native American genocide in North America, with particular attention in Bartel’s composition to the Indigenous Peoples of Eastern States, and a conversation about land ownership.
Along with music by Arvo Part, and Aphex Twin, the “Landscape Vernacular” playlist also includes works by John Cage, John Adams, Zoe Keating, Ethel, Moondog, Hildur Gudnadottir, and a combo by Ty Burhoe, Krishna Das, Manotama, John Friend and Amy Ippoliti, for the collage “Common Geography The Earth and Its Inhabitants August 9, 2019.”
Q & A: TODD BARTEL
JFM: TELL US ABOUT YOUR SOURCE MATERIAL, WHERE DO YOU FIND THE VINTAGE PRINTED WORKS, BOOK PAGES AND OTHER PAPER MATERIAL?
TB: I have been collecting book materials since the early 1980s, and particularly drawn to 19th-century texts, and only use books for my collage work that I own. I just purchased a copy of “American Monthly Magazine” 1, January 1836, and am thrilled to have an original copy of Thomas Cole’s essay “American Scenery” which I quoted from in “Gateway to the American Sublime.” I often stumble upon books I want to purchase while searching for online for engravings. I get my papers from a variety of places, including donations from friends, and am particularly interested in finding aged and damaged paper. Jack Massey just gave me several pieces of 13th-century monastic blotter paper. It is so mysterious and beautiful, made with oak gall ink, and the salt and acid in the ink ate away hundreds of holes over the centuries, it is like looking at a moth-eaten cloud with dark-rimmed holey freckles!
JFM: WHAT COMES FIRST FOR YOU: THE MATERIALS OR THE CONCEPTS? DO YOU HUNT DOWN CERTAIN PAPER WORKS TO FIT AN IDEA, OR DO YOU ALLOW THE PAPER ITSELF — WHAT’S PRINTED — TO DIRECT THE NEXT PIECE?
TB: Actually, yes, to each question! It is always interesting to see which comes first. One thing I love is that as I am working and realize I need a certain image or text, I often just go through my files, review them and pull out things I have collected over the years, rediscovering things I forgot. I love making connections with materials, images, and texts. Collect and connect! Whenever I go on the hunt for materials I always find more than I need and often that prompts the next work.
I love pointing out that the first piece in the “Landscape Vernacular” series was not even intended to be a series. I simply wanted to make an altered facsimile of one of my former professor’s collages, Alfred DeCredico’s “A Journey.” My own “A Journey, (After A.D.),” was meant to only be an homage piece, but it led me to two other pieces, “Sublime Climate” and “Animas Hominis,” and then from there I realized I had a series.
I just ride the waves, come as they will, whatever they may be and this keeps me happy and interested in the studio! Also, and this is important – once I realized I had a collection of dictionaries from the early 1800‘s to the present day, I reread “Discovering the Vernacular Landscape” by John Brinckerhoff. His essay on the etymology of the word “landscape” is why I named the series after his book.
JFM: THE INCLUSION OF SOUND AND MUSIC PLAYLIST WITH THE “LANDSCAPE VERNACULAR” IS FANTASTIC. HOW DID THIS IDEA DEVELOP FOR YOU? WERE YOU LISTENING TO MUSIC WHILE WORKING?
TB: Yes, it was a happy discovery, quite by chance, feeling the music and the collage together. Making the QR Codes was a labor of love, hours of work. I had been intuitively gravitating toward listening to the clean sounds of string quartets, so I created a special playlist I dubbed “Landscape Vernacular Playlist.” Sometime over the last four months, while planning for this show with Jack, I happened to notice the title “Be-In” by Ethel was playing while I was looking at and holding the collage “Gateway to the American Sublime” and realized there was an interesting relationship between the music and the collage.
In the QR code Playlist there is only one work that has a purple color. All the other colors of the QR Codes are green, the color of plants. Purple, is considered a spiritual color. That song, that collage, “Animas Hominis” is the only work in the “Landscape Vernacular” series that does not have a dictionary definition. It is about the spirit of wo /man, sublime. Here is a link to see the “Landscape Vernacular” collages on my website: https://toddbartel.com/collages-/landscape-vernacular
(“Todd Bartel and Jack Massey: working PAPER” continues through October 5 at the Hera Gallery, 10 High St., Wakefield, Rhode Island; there will be an artist talk by Todd Bartel on Saturday, October 5 at 1 p.m. For more information, call (401) 789-1488.)
DOUGLAS BREAULT: SOFT FOCUS AT FORT POINT ARTS COMMUNITY MAIN GALLERY
On view now through August 5, eight mixed media collage works, including a sculpture, by Douglas Breault, are featured in “Soft Focus,” an exhibition at the Fort Point Arts Community Main Gallery showing some of the best approaches to contemporary conceptual art happening right now.
The works on view are a perfect blending of physicality and intellectualism. Breault is a visual composer of subtle narratives, at first appearing completely abstract engaging only form and materials, but then slowly revealing poignant, mysterious and poetic stories. For Breault, the art arrives from a place of realism. From a solid place, he allows the materials themselves to express their true rawness and emotive situations to live and expand out, transmuting into unexpected ideas. What appears as happenstance and chaos is organized, purposeful and planned. From physical real points, Breault then pushes the tangible into the conceptual to extract deeper feeling and possibilities.
What does this mean? He takes photographs, paint, plastic, paper and whatever other objects he’s exploring at the moment and works and/or composes them into final forms that simultaneously reveal and hide information. At the center of the exhibition is a sculpture: “Shadow of a Doubt,” an assemblage featuring a discarded and refound stepladder, mirrors, lights and a painting underneath. The beauty of this piece is in its encouragement to the viewer to be part of the work. By standing in front of the mirror, the viewer is able to see their own feet, suggesting the active stepping onto the object, and the painting underneath which is colored in moody gothic black, pinks, blues and yellows allusions to cloud space, night, shadows and skyscape.
The work encourages questions: Is the artist playing with the idea of stairway to heaven? Breault does not tell us directly what the pieces is about, which is the charm and power of his work. The ladder itself has had its functional identity removed, and yet, it still retains an element of its original purpose. Breault leaves meaning open to investigation. None of the works on view have labels next to them with explanations, allowing the viewer to conjure up their own ideas. Without subject context, “Shadow of a Doubt” is an excellent mixed-in-process sculpture that’s both a viewer interactive assemblage and painting. Through emotional investigation, however, the sculpture radiates a feeling of possible transition and deep meaning.
In direct dialogue with this work is “Smoke and Mirrors,” a mixed media collage featuring an enlarged photograph of a hand on top of a textured painted surface with an overlay of basic clear plastic held up with blue painter’s tape. As a collage painting, it is about the play of light and dark, exploring impressions and texture. The image is of an abstracted ghostly hand, a fragment only, a suggestion to a memory. Of this work and another excellent composition, “Give Me a Moment,” which also features a photographic collaged element, Breault said, “When information is missing, we fill in the blanks.” Both works are about distortion – what is real and what is false, and the reinvention of object identity.
“Give Me a Moment” is one of the best pieces on view, complete in all ways as a final form. It is a collage mixed media painting, again with plastic overlay. The materials are allowed to exist in their rawness with a lot of natural variations showing beautiful imperfection. At the center is a black-and-white photograph fragment of a leg and foot within an ambiguous setting, perhaps a room. The blue, black and white stripes mimic the step ladder sculpture “Shadow of a Doubt,” suggesting, again, a transition into another space/environment, and or the foggy recollection of a time past. The physical and solid condition of an interior space with the conceptual atmospheric feeling of time and movement is also the narrative in the next best work in the exhibition, “Summer Wind,” a small collage work, again with photographic collage, painted surfaces and plastic overlay giving the entire piece a dreamlike, soft-focus quality.
Douglas Breault received his MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2017, and he currently teaches art at Bridgewater State University. He talks about his creative process here:
JFM: THE WORK ORIGINATED IN MAINE AND TRAVELLED TO MASSACHUSETTS, TELL US ABOUT THE PROCESS OF CREATING IT ORIGINALLY, WHAT INSPIRED THESE PIECES?
DB: The work began with the idea of translating fuzzy memories through a process of mimicry and abstraction into something tangible. I am more sentimental than I initially thought- saving old photographs, contact sheets, furniture, and messy notes in my journal. I like to test the capacity and limitations of the internet in memorializing memories, often printing low-resolution images into large prints, embracing the pixilation and glitches. Many of the images I find online are Google Street View captures of important houses and locations, archived images of family members, or appropriated photographs where a location or person is in the image that I feel connected to. When I collect, and assemble these fragmented materials, I am able to connect the dots between object, image and narrative into a designed physical existence.
IT’S OBVIOUS YOU LOVE RAW TEXTURE AND MATERIAL AUTHENTICITY, WHY DO YOU PREFER THE ‘MESSY LOOK’ IN ART?
For me, materiality is essential to work through my ideas, subordinating form to process. I think things can appear haphazard because of the immediacy of working out an idea, but also because the materials aren’t disguised. The use of plastic, tape or photographs is meant to be apparent to the viewer. I like making the construction of the layers apparent – for example being able to see how a photograph is cut and glued and layered in a less formal display than traditional photography. I have never really had the ability to sit at an easel patiently. When I am making a body of work I work on multiple things at once, and I am bouncing around my studio in short bursts, often pacing in the in-between moments where I am looking at the pieces in progress. I feel comfortable being able to pour, cut, glue, stretch and paint in a really physical manner which leaves little room to be precise or delicate.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DOUG BREAULT? ARE YOU EXPANDING THIS SERIES, OR STARTING ANOTHER?
I tend to work on a lot of different projects and series simultaneously, and I bounce between them. I will continue to make work in this series and I would like to continue to push the scale larger. I would love the idea of possibly creating an outdoor sculpture, and I am researching different materials that would be able to survive the elements and have some permanence. I am also working on a series of still life photographs where the collage is almost deconstructed and documented, using mirrors and lights to generate small spaces that are documented with photography.
(“Douglas Breault: Soft Focus” remains on view through August 5 at the Fort Point Arts Community Main Gallery, 300 Summer St., Boston, Massachusetts, which is also exhibiting “John S. Dykes: Pop Culture and Advertising: 1960 Meets 2020” and “Karen McFeaters: In Flux: The Landscape of Boston.” The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and by appointment. For more information, visit fortpointartsorg.)
Under the Surface: Nedret Andre’s ‘Seagrass: Ecological Engineers’ at Hess
Bold, whimsical lines and color travel across the canvases in Nedret Andre’s exhibit at Chestnut Hill’s Hess Galley. Stormy blues and fiery corals swirl and collide into each other, creating abstract forms and shapes. Andre’s oil paintings in the collection “Seagrass: Ecological Engineers” delve into the ethereal world of one of the most quickly deteriorating ecosystems on the planet—seagrass. When snorkeling, Andre witnessed this flowering plant thriving off of the sunlight cascading into the waters, giving life to thousands of sea creatures with its production of carbon for food and its safe habitat. This plant so vital to the health of coral reefs and estuaries unfortunately experiences the loss of two football fields worth each hour due to industrial fishing, invasive species and pollution.
Andre captures the fragility, interconnectedness and enchantment of seagrass in “Bridge to Babel,” where warm colors stroked in different shades and weights bend across the canvas in a circular shape. They entwine with scribbled charcoal lines that undulate through blocks of color, representing the linking of shorelines and parts of the sea. An olive green remains constant through the form, representing the seagrass interwoven with unique species. The title of the piece also conjures images of the Biblical Tower of Babel, which introduces themes of language and diversity, similar to the effects of seagrass supporting the ecosystem. Andre experimented with dilutions of oil paint in this piece, giving it depth and a certain gravity that viewers feel when observing the graffiti-like markings and sense of light expanding outwards.
“Bubblegum Somersault” also sinks deep into the habitat creation seagrass provides for animals like the seahorse. Its rectangular blocks of mainly warm colors stacked vertically against a dripping blue background resemble bricks stacked to form a building of sorts, giving it foundation and structure. Andre recognizes that seagrass acts as a “building block” of oceanic life and in this gestural piece, she creates a haven for colorful creatures among the plant. She emphasizes this connection through the tight stacks and the sticky and playful chewing gum title. The stacks reach upwards towards the brightest area as seagrass does, amongst algae that partially blocks the light.
Andre’s creative process reaches for beyond the canvas through her hands-on work in the field of marine ecology. She actively participates in planting new seagrass beds on the ocean floor with scientists who inspire her with their research and advocacy in preserving ocean life. This Boston-based artist hopes to make a difference and educate the general public about seagrass through her involvement and art, which can be interpreted in many ways. Each piece at Hess Gallery’s exhibit is for sale for $250 to $15,000 and part of the proceeds go towards seagrass projects to keep this essential plant and all of the other underwater vegetation, fish, seahorses, sea turtles and octopus flourishing in their natural habitats.
(“Seagrass: Ecological Engineers” remains on view through May 20th at Hess Gallery of Pine Manor College, 400 Heath Street, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. For more information, visit http://www.pmc.edu/current-exhibition or call (617) 731-7157.)
Works on Paper at the South Shore Art Center
The Bancroft Gallery at South Shore Art Center’s current show is “Works on Paper,” juried by Andrew Witkin of Krakow Witkin Gallery. “Works on Paper” has a diverse set of pieces, the only common denominator of them being that they are paper. From hyper realistic watercolor to abstract cut-paper works, the show was dominated by a mix of media. Out of hundreds of artists’ submissions, only 50 works were picked by Witkin for the show, and seven of them given awards.
“I was amazed at the breadth of exploration and the depth of involvement,” Witkin’s juror statement expressed. “My decisions are balanced between personal preferences and respect for the specifics of the wonderful diversity of art presented. The works show incredible creativity, dedication and skill.”
Witkin asked that the award winners be honored equally; “In this era of intense judgement and separation, I hope this group of works provides a positive opportunity not just to celebrate one’s own achievements, but those of the collective art-making community!”
The seven winners were Deborah Baye, for her striking black and yellow, abstract mixed-media piece, “Night and Day;” Tara Connaughton, for her hyper realistic watercolor and graphite drawing, “White-breasted Nuthatch;” Carol Flax, for her seaside reclaimed-paper collage, “Sailor’s Delight;” Deb Hall, for her abstract digital and handmade print, “Crack in The Ground;” Bror Hultgren for his white, textural cast paper pulp piece, “Runes of Time’s Passage 2;” Erin Juliana for her patterned, interwoven cut paper piece, “Idiopathic;” and Stephen Sheffield for his archival print of an original collage, “Going Away For A While.”
There were other notable pieces in the show. Laurie Bonner’s digital image capture, “Midnight Mermaid,” is a beautiful image. Dominated by a deep aqua color, haphazard streaks of light pink and white create the texture of light reflecting off ocean, and a dark quasi-human shape swims toward the top left corner of the frame.
Nancy Connolly’s embossing print, “From the Wild Garden,” is reminiscent of a cyanotype print. The steely blue-green background against the staunch white, long-stemmed flowers gives a dramatic contrast among the movement within the stems.
Susan Denniston’s “Shroud,” is a collection of monotype prints on translucent Japanese papers, stitched together with black thread. The prints are of looped thread or possibly yarn, with varying degrees of contrast and lightness.
Peter Everett’s “Fence,” is a rather large ink piece consisting of vertical black lines with a vague blob of darkness looming behind them. Diana Barker Price’s digital image capture, “Conscious,” is a lovely black and white shot of sticks pebbles underwater. And Jack Sullivan’s “Treasure Hunters,” is a nostalgic watercolor of four children crowded around a large blue bucket on a beach, no doubtedly admiring their freshly-caught marine treasures.
There’s something in this show for everyone, including photography, sculpture, watercolor, printmaking and collage. Each work exhibited is for sale. Concurrently on view in the Dillon Gallery is “Small Works,” where gallery artists are featuring small works for sale at affordable prices just in time for the holiday season; and the Manning Lobby Feature is a solo show of works by Esther Maschio.
(“Works on Paper” is on view through December 19 in the Bancroft Gallery at the South Shore Art Center, 119 Ripley Road, Cohasset, Massachusetts. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. and Sunday from noon–4 p.m.; for more information, call (781) 383-2787.)
Ellie Brown: Holding on to a Dear Life
Alzheimer’s. A word that conjures up images of fear, isolation, confusion, and loss. In the United States today, 5.7 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s. By 2050, this number is projected to rise to nearly 14 million.
Terminal illness is a painful topic — but this one strikes home for me. My father was recently, finally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, after years of ambiguous labels assigned to his memory loss and declining capacity to care for himself.
I sat down with photographer and mixed media artist Ellie Brown to talk about Alzheimer’s, fathers and daughters, and art as a means of documenting, unpacking and transforming this disease. Brown’s upcoming show “Sundown,” at AS220 in Providence, encompasses all of these things.
Brown’s own father, a tall, friendly and robust guy known for his love of music and acting, was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in 2015 after years of ambiguous dementia. Then based in Philadelphia, she soon thereafter moved her life to Rhode Island in order to be closer to him and to make the most of the time they had left.
“When I found out my father had early onset Alzheimer’s disease, it was my first instinct to photograph and document everything — as I do — partly to document the disease, but also to have my own personal record of my father,” recounted Brown.
“It [soon] became clear to me that my father wasn’t comfortable with having his straight photographic image on my website, and that other members of my family weren’t comfortable [either]. So, I took a step back and stopped photographing him. I started making gel medium transfers with the images I had already taken. My instincts told me to start drawing into them. And what happened was, I was able to get at the nuances of the disease that I wasn’t able to with straight photographs.”
The transfer of an original photograph to another medium represents one layer of removal from reality. The degradation of the image that results is another layer of loss. The imagery reflects the hallucinations, metaphors, fears and emotions of Brown’s father’s Alzheimer’s experience. The work is shadowy, small scale and largely monochromatic, although a few pops of color peek through here and there.
“This is something I’ve thought about a lot,” admitted Brown. “My photographs are really colorful, [but] this is darker subject matter.”
“The images reflect conversations we have when he tells me about his hallucinations, or I sit and observe him in the middle of one. He is always dizzy and so I’ve chosen this mixed media process to empathetically reflect the disorientation he’s feeling,” explained Brown.
The work feels intensely personal. Documentary of a family member, by nature, is intensely personal.
“I can tell you that some people are really put off by work that is this personal,” said Brown. “I showed my work to someone recently, and he said it felt like he was looking at pages of my diary, which I thought was extraordinary.”
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