Michael McCarthy - the Human Form


From the series:  Whatever is closest is most mysterious (citation from David Hockney):

Working with rather primitive materials while living on a Greek island, I became fascinated with the chalky, imprecise imagery I was obtaining using low quality negatives combined with the cyanotype process. Rather than seeming inadequate, the scratchy, irregular images read like a flickering radio signal which transformed the prints from being simple representations into mysterious messages from some distant and unknown world - seeming at once familiar and strange.


From the series: Anti-Portraits:

This project was perhaps the most alchemical of all Michael McCarthy’s projects and ultimately was about a transformation of the human face through aggressive manual and chemical treatments of negative and prints into something beyond a simple physical representation. The prints take on a shamanistic quality where the human portraits have transmuted into new beings in a new and unfamiliar reality.




From the series: Bodies:

This series is perhaps the earliest where I began to play with the notion of the photograph as artifact. Moving away from thinking of photographs primarily as representations, I used a variety of manual and chemical treatments to transform the photograph into an object that carried the signs of its own history. This notion of history and archaeology linked to the human form inevitably reminds us that the human body has a history--one which has a beginning as well as an end.

ABOUT
My path toward becoming a photographer and artist began in ernest after spending a tranquil eighteen years living in Ithaca, New York. Since that time I've been lucky enough to visit and live in many different and mostly exciting environments. Currently, I live and work in Paris, France.

Studies often provided opportunities to discover new communities: bringing me to Vermont, Paris, Philadelphia and Rome. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from the University of Vermont (1987) and then a Master of Fine Arts degree from Tyler School of Art in Photography (1993) where I also devoted considerable time to Printmaking.

EXHIBITION (ongoing)
the Human Form exhibit at Galerie Duboys (6, rue des Coutures St. Gervais, Paris 3ème).

WEB
www.galerieduboys.com


Comments

mrurbano said…
Great photos - wish I could see the show