Mena Assad

Some of the great modern philosophers, Schelling to Schiller to Schopenhauer, have all pinpointed a major reason for great art’s power to transcend . When we look at any beautiful object (natural or artistic), we suspend all other activity, and we are simply aware, we only want to contemplate the object. In that contemplative awareness, our own ego grasping in time comes momentarily to rest. We relax into our basic awareness. We rest with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. We are face to face with the calm, the eye in the center of the storm. We are not agitating to change things; we contemplate the object as it is. We are released from grasping, released from time, released from avoidance.

This portrait-series aims to release the image from the constraints of time and context through the use of classic film-photography. Stripped of its historical and cultural context, what remains is the powerful human face leading the viewer to the contemplative state. This is the power of the portrait.