Urges

Urges / 1990

Traditional C-41 Prints - 6 / 10" x 10"

Kim Borst

The concept behind this work was introspection. In the spring of 1989 I earned my M.F.A. and was hired that fall as a Visiting Artist and moved from Washington to Wisconsin. I did not want to leave Washington, as I was enamored with the northwest. I had a very difficult time my first year adjusting to the weather and culture of northern Wisconsin plus I had ended an awful 11-year relationship with a woman to come here. I was about to begin my second year of teaching consumed by doubt and feeling quite unhappy.

A colleague exemplified my dilemma by jokingly referring to me as “the most miserable man in the world!”

I decided it was time to look inward and try to understand this uncertainty by using myself and revealing my identity as subject of my pictures. This was entirely new to me and frightening but it felt like the best way to say something about what I was feeling. I concluded the root of my problem lay in basic human instinct regarding needs, wants, and desires; “urges” in other words. These pictures represent the psychological and emotional state of experiencing tangible and intangible human urges.