Awe and Ecstasy Portraits

Awe and Ecstasy Portraits / 1992

Traditional Silver Prints - 5 / 36" x 24"

Kim Borst

The concept behind this work evolved from the need to establish a memory of like-minded student friends who would soon be moving away. Initially, I wanted to do a large-scale collage like mural of the faces of these friends and wash away much of the detail that defines the face with an intense artificial light source. This would allow only the darkest areas of their Caucasian skin such as mouths, eyes, eyebrows, and nasal openings to appear while more defining detail disappeared. I also wanted their mouths to be open and their eyes to look either upward or be closed as if in awe or in ecstasy; as if something profound was affecting their inner being. I abandoned the large collage mural approach because of the difficulties of presentation and elected to present each persons portrait separately. To maintain the large scale I chose to use several pieces of 8-inch by 10-inch black and white resin coated photographic paper sometimes cut up into smaller pieces and arranged on the enlarger base making an approximately 36-inch by 24-inch format to expose each face on. Each of the large face exposures were done from a 35mm black and white negative in 3 stages by dodging parts of the image in one stage, throwing the enlarger in and out of focus in the second, and adding or subtracting contrast in the third stage. Enlarging 35mm film to that size provided a desired graininess to each portrait. After exposure and processing I then reassembled the wet pieces of each face allowing the resin-coated paper to stick together once dry. I then wrapped each portrait onto a 36-inch by 24-inch piece of window glass using red, yellow, and blue colored plastic food wrap for 3 of the images and then combined those primary colors to wrap the remaining 2 images in orange and purple. I included a masked self-portrait to suggest what may be hidden beyond just the identity revealed in the portraits of my friends.