Three Photographs by Michael Toussaint

NOTES FROM THE ARTIST

Portraiture is a traditional focus for photography and painting, and in this series, I am blending elements and techniques of both mediums, leaving the viewer unsure of what they see. Through what appears like an alchemical process of image extraction—rather than image making—the series challenges the conventions of art historical categories. Even while questioning the nature of painting and photography, the influence of both mediums and their histories is apparent. As a result, the final images give the sense of the familiar while maintaining the character of the unique.

These portraits represent the fleeting moment when the subject is both in and out of control. They embody the fluid point of transition, both as a subject and a process. Is the person transitioning from representational to abstraction? Is this sequence reversed? Or is the person forever frozen in a moment? Are they losing their control or struggling to regain it? The process is a precarious tightrope where the image is taken at the moment when control of the creative process is lost. One must be out of control to create portraits that depict the subject losing it and struggling to regain it.

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Michael Toussaint is a Denver, Colorado-based creative. Concepts that are integral to his work include the transformation of the everyday or common through perception and context, the use of chance operations, and the engagement with series that are unstable and in flux. He uses each concept, theme, approach, and material to establish new forms. This search is the core of his art.