Please Touch

This project began in 2015, and was driven by a desire to communicate an intimate relationship that at the time had to be kept secret. Much of the series was actually made together, but they (assistant maybe, occasionally collaborator even) were still unaware that the work was a reaction to them, they couldn't read the visuals. They pressed the shutter release in many of the images, helped and watched in the edit. At first this was frustrating, driving me to make images with more violent or overt connotations and titles, but soon it became a kind of exploratory game. This process made me aware of how photographic processes can be used to encrypt, to flash open a scene but simultaneously conceal people. Throughout this series images of my own and the other's skin is used - printed on a variety of surfaces from satin, faux suede, silk (cyanotype), vinyl and tyvek - as a cloak, shield, proxy, home, test dummy, stunt double. This project sparked a fascination in tactile usage of the image and the layering of image planes within a single work. Please Touch exhibition presented at HATCHED at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art 2016 Stills Gallery 2016