Portraits

The face is that part of our bodies that most represents us. Like the hands, through which it is often possible to ascertain a person’s social status, revealing her personality.
Initially attracted by people’s  gazes, I then asked a few “chosen” ones to show me their hands.
I asked quite a few people, diverse in their ethnicity, profession, or social class. Thinking that they might all reply to my request in the same manner, I in fact found the opposite to be true. What I thought to be an easy question, “how would you show me your hands if you were facing me?,” resulted in obvious embarrassment even in those from whom I least expected it. In the few shots dedicated to each one of them, they all reacted by extending their hands in a resigned yet personal manner, giving life to a variety of genuine expressions and behaviors.
During this process the work was enriched and became more defined. If, in the way that they presented their hands, each person became a sort of protector of their life-choice and craft, then it was clear that I should try to transform those resulting half busts into icons. The result was a studied and dogged sanctification in life of those who I had chosen, who put on display with the exposed parts of their person, their faces and hands, the subtle game of identification with the passionate “know-how” in which each one envelops the sense of their own life.