Jack Leach
Faceless
Inspired by my own long-term struggles with mental illness, Faceless is a series of four abstract self-portraits that explore mental health issues through the lens of a young American man. In February of 2019 I was hospitalized following a suicide attempt. Battling with my mental state for years before this moment, my time pursuing treatment was not the part of this experience that would hold the most significance to me; rather it was the sea of expectations that had been awaiting my arrival home post-discharge.
Employing various additive and subtractive photographic techniques as well as hand-made embellishments to the prints, the works in the series serve as visual representations of the struggles I have faced while continuing living with mental illnesses. When viewing a portrait, one may often hold the expectation to see a clear image of an individual. The photographs presented, however, show minimal details of a human form while using multiple means of abstraction to mask the identity of the subject. Following my hospitalization many people seemed to expect me to begin to present myself as an entirely new person; someone who I never was or could be. Visually, the works in Faceless reference this period of my life. Rather than presenting a false reality in the sense of contriving a perfect image of an imperfect man, I have decided to display my image as I see myself; going through life with an uncertainty as to who I really am and, at times, how I truly feel. Larger-than-life prints of these self-portraits demand the attention of the audience and serve as a testament to my newfound pride in presenting my imperfections.
No two people will have lives or situations that are exactly the same, but the thought of someone else having experiences that are in some way similar to yours can serve to make a great impact on difficult situations. With this serving as my inspiration I have begun sharing my thoughts and experiences through my art in hopes that the pieces I create will feel familiar not to the average viewer searching for a face in a photograph but to the individual who can understand the emotion that lies behind the creation of the work. If just one man in a position similar to mine could relate to the works displayed in the series and appreciate their sentiment then I can fully believe that the pieces are successful.
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The surface-altered works employ images shot on a Canon DSLR camera and printed on a fine art luster paper manipulated by hand using various additive and subtractive techniques such as removing print emulsion and painting over print surfaces. The luster paper provided a surface with a balance of high print quality, lack of glare, and receptiveness to the embellishments added after printing. Environmental abstractions were created by placing an extra layer between the camera and subject while making the initial photograph, such as a mirror coated with steam or a wall of smoke. These photographs were taken on the same camera and printed on the same paper to keep an element of materialistic consistency within the series of prints as a whole.
