The Invitation
Photographic series

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The Invitation follows the artist Bert Gilbert over the course of a single night, after an invitation into a soiree.

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The photographs continue my exploration of presence and absence, but here through the relationship between photographer and subject. Bert moves in and out of focus, in and out of the crowd, at times acutely aware of the camera and at others seemingly unaware of it altogether.

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I became interested in those shifts: the moment she presents herself to the lens, the moment she withdraws from it, and the moments when she is simply caught existing within her own experience.

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The resulting black-and-white images move between portraiture and observation. Bert is alternately witnessed and unwitnessed, revealed and obscured, present for the camera and present only for herself.

 

The Invitation becomes less a record of a night than an attempt to capture the unstable space between being there and being seen.