needle's eye/INTERWOVEN PORTRAITS
For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
St Luke, 18:25
This project will be an interrelated series of portraits in which the size of each individual portrait will be determined by the subject’s income or economic value.
I will depict people from different economic strata: rich, wealthy, middle class, poor, and destitute. The portraits will relate to each other through consistent application of contrast of extension. Contrast of extension is an elementary and fundamental design concept, it addresses contrast of size and scale. It entails the consideration of the overall size of an image as well as the balance of differently sized shapes and colours within an image.
For example, a portrait of a billionaire art collector, who has public art galleries named in his or her honour, will be massive in relation to the majority of relatively small, more conventionally sized, depictions of middle income patrons who frequent the gallery. Likewise, portraits of children on social assistance will be postage stamp sized. Following through with this visual logic an image of a beggar standing outside the gallery will be microscopic. Some portraits of beggars and children will require a microscope in order to be seen.
I’m starting this series with a self portrait. The size of this image is one square foot.