Who is this person who visits the Honolulu Academy of Arts? While the Academy forges ahead with a marketing survey, Artist in Residence Elizabeth Curtis is identifying them in a different way. If you visit her blog, you’ll find an eclectic cache of images. These images are not just snapshots of someone’s mother/father/sister/brother at the art museum. They stand as social commentary, and attempt to raise questions about one’s perceived identity. We often think of photographic portraiture as two-dimensional bottles of nostalgia; a way to capture and hold on to that memory we hold so dear, yet these images are so much more. Portraits possess the power to shape and cement ones identity and status, and though an image can be fictional and fabricated, the end result is in and of itself is immanent. Not so innocuous, the portrait, when you think about it…
Canonize yourself in Elizabeth’s project TONIGHT at ARTafterDARK and this weekend (her last at the Academy). Call 532-8700 or visit our website for more information.