Maktar, 2018

Nicholas Winter  

We are surrounded and overwhelmed by the face that pleases or should please. In advertisements, magazines, TV, online and offline, the face is forever present. We live in a world of the selfie, the faces that please the taker of the image, defining what they believe they look like or should (or could) look like with the purpose of being 'liked'.

In contrast, 'forget not, recollect’, presents a different take on the portrait. Models are sat for an extended period of time, 60-90 seconds, in front of their own image, a reflection in glass. In turn the dynamic of the face that wants to be seen on the outside alters to a deeper more personal 'inner' portrait. It is these inner faces of the subjects that interest.
Through the procedure, the faces stop seeking to please the sitter (subject). Rather they become almost transparent, open, vulnerable, a window into a more personal world.

The experience in the time taken for the portrait is as if the poetical 'I' comes to the surface from behind the outer face; a lightened essence of the person and the 'things' that occupy within. It is as if we look into the portrait, the sitter, to where fear, pain, pleasure, love and loss, and memories dwell. There lies fragility of the 'inner I' below the surface, exposed and laid open with the intention of creating a moment to reflect.