Beam In On Me Baby

Matt Whitmeyer self portrait at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York
Matt Whitmeyer self portrait at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York

Most portraits are really self portraits or at least the goods ones are. And collectively the outdoor show of local self portraits, submitted as jpegs to the D&C and printed on durable plastic and tie-wrapped to the fence surrounding the Memorial Art Gallery’s grounds, work as a portrait of the city. I generally lean toward the most expressive painting in a show like this but my favorite was Matt Whitmeyer‘s photographic self portrait. I love the dead pan generic quality, the grey environment and minimal color. I love the calm but deliberate delivery, the cool but intense stare. He appears to be looking right at you but when I looked back at him I found he he wasn’t really looking at anything and then after five minutes or so our eyes connected and I moved on. I looked down at the ground and found this bag of stones, a construction worker’s self portrait.

3 Comments

3 Replies to “Beam In On Me Baby”

  1. I wonder why we’re not hearing more about this outdoor show- I live a block away and stumbled upon it last weekend. The way it is displaying is quite arresting, two block long display of self-portraits on University. If you haven’t seen it, make a point of it.

  2. not the stone bag but the photo of the stone bag belongs in the gallery, it’s the perception and the interpretation of the object

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