“The time of my life” – photogravure portraiture

Moseley, Peter

Abstract

My gravure portraiture series is focused on explorations of the textural and tonal characteristics of early photographic printmaking processes. Print surface and texture is central to this project, complementing the choice of mature and older subjects. Their skin, their faces and their bodies offer an unparalleled generosity of texture and interpretation and provide ample opportunity for the exploration of affectively and aesthetically nuanced printmaking.
I seek to avoid objectified representation. I try to incorporate and foreground the agency and self-awareness of my sitters, acknowledging their participation in the construction of their portraits. At the same time, by denial of socioeconomic placement, I hope to offer enhanced space for the emergence of the viewers’ engagement, unconstrained by my ascriptions of identity, class, status or authority. My sitters are presented anonymously, without prop, social cue or smile. They look appraisingly at the viewer; their intimacy of naked exposure independently and individually asserts their physicality, persona and participation. Their corporeality is mirrored in the labour of my realisation, the antithesis of snapped spontaneity. My prints – archaic processed photographic imagery though not photographs – aim to depict the humanity and scale of presence of subjects who with dignity offer, to the gaze of the unknown other, intimate and voyeuristic access to their embodied selves.

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Impact 8 Conference
• Start Date: Aug 28, 2013
• End Date: Sep 1, 2013
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2013
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: gravure, portraiture, printmaking, fine art
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/939666
• Publisher URL: http://www.conf.dundee.ac.uk/impact8/people/biographies-2/peter-moseley/
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Impact 8 International Printmaking Conference: A celebration of interdisciplinarity and exploration through the medium of print