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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Five: Using the frame to define ideas > Sidewalk artist, Istanbul, Turkey, 2009
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13-OCT-2009

Sidewalk artist, Istanbul, Turkey, 2009

I based this image on the nature of the frame itself. A frame is boundary, and I use it here to abstract the image and reinforce the role of the frame as part of the artistic process. I deliberately slice the painting in half vertically and at the same time slice into the artist with it. A smaller version of the painting is horizontally sliced in half by my frame at the bottom. The painting itself ironically remains unframed.

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Phil Douglis25-Nov-2009 17:30
Thanks, Tim, for these observations. The interplay (or lack thereof) between the three mouths is so obvious now, but I don't recall even noticing it as I took this image. I was concentrating more on abstracting the scene by cropping the painting in half. The relationship between the three faces in this image did not become apparent until after I made the shot and saw it on the computer screen. It validates the two stages of meaning we encounter as we make photographs -- they often mean one thing to us as we release the shutter, and often more as we view the result.
Tim May25-Nov-2009 17:21
There are images of three people in this picture, five eyes, and two mouths. Yet such a range of emotion from the three. The photo which seems to have been used by the artist to draw the picture seems to show a dour serious fellow, yet the mouth that we see in the drawing adds the hint of a smile. All three men are staring at us, but the "real" person does not seem overly happy. The artist doesn't seem to want to be art.
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