3 of 14

Photo: Courtesy of the artist and ClampArt, New York, NY and Lee Marks Fine Art, Shelbyville, IN.

Pressure Point. 2002.



What were you looking for in your self-portraits? Was there a goal in mind?

"The process became this way of entering and exploring my thoughts. The [first] picture was driven from being really uncomfortable, being at the beach, with my friends in bikinis. There was that moment of taking off the tank top and shorts to go into the water and fixating on the five yards I would have to walk before I was covered again... I was super embarrassed... I set up my camera, I didn’t know really what I was doing — I had never made a self-portrait before. I was uncomfortable when I was doing it, because the camera was drawing attention to me, even though I wanted to be hidden. People were looking...I went home and I processed the film, and I was shocked at the way that I was able to capture this slice of life, this really kind of painful moment, and it didn’t feel forced. It didn’t feel staged. It felt really authentic to that moment, and so that was the propelling point to move forward and work."