3 minute read
CRITIQUING AND LEGITIMIZING REALITY THROUGH FALSE IDENTITIES AND HIGHLY RENDERED UTOPIAS/DYSTOPIAS
WILLIAM HOHE
As a creative and an artist, my lens and medium of choice is one that at first glance is highly technical, rooted in science, and a recorder of reality; that is camera and photography. In essence, the camera is supposed to render the world in a copy through analog or digital means and postproduction is usually adapted to fit the colors and perception of the human eye; what is seen ought to be what is truth.
In my work, I enjoy turning that principle on its head in full rejection. That’s where “worlding” comes in. In my photographic work, I often times contain a duality of personal expression and cathartic emotional processing amidst a wider critique on society and the current events for which I am enraged, inspired, saddened, or passionate about.
I find that I am able to get across the point I am trying to make to myself and to my audiences best when I create a world, an imagined state, or false identity in my images. This means highly elaborate colors, sets, backdrops, and environments that typically use elements of material goods and items from my own life that I have obsessions and symbolistic meanings for but are rendered and transformed in such a way that they become otherworldly. I find that I am able to relate and feel a sense of satisfaction more when the image is so wrong that it becomes right. This can be achieved through turning a model into a tinfoil alien or painting my face blue. The opportunities and experiences are endless.
In Hell with High Water, 2022
Photographed by William Hohe
At its best, art and specifically photography works to create an illusion, suspend the disbelief of the viewer to captivate them in such a way that moves whatever you are trying to get across, whether it be nothing, something so specific, or broad, that it sticks with the human viewing or experiencing it for much longer than they bargained for. In much of art history, this was done through creating an ideal, a realistic depiction, or façade of reality. In my art, I want to create something so illusioned, so idealized, and so far removed from our current reality that it becomes substantiated in the mind as if it was of this world. By “worlding” away from what we can experience in this realm, I hope I can impact, through outlandish and often overwhelming means, a rendering of a world that could be, of a situation that might be, and of circumstances that help us question and critique our current dilemmas. Through fantasy, psychedelic journeys, and worlds not yet legitimized, maybe this reality can be much more thrilling, imaginative, and tolerable in the process.
Prom Song (Gone Wrong) is from a highly stylized shoot that featured models sporting their moms’ prom dresses. It’s a questionable scene that looks more like a film still than a photograph, begging the viewer to ask what happened before…and after.
Prom Song (Gone Wrong), 2021
Photographed by William Hohe
Prepare for Impact was a spontaneous shot that I took while with Alexa and Rece, two of my friends. We were stopped at the train tracks, and everything looked perfect; I forced Alexa out of the car and we got the shot using the car’s headlights. In this way, a world was created out of thin air, circumstance, and what was available.
Prepare for Impact, 2021
Photographed by William Hohe
In All Fake Flowers as Seeds of Her Depression, Alex let me into her home and showed me her fake flower collection, one she bought every time she was sad or depressed. I wanted to celebrate this coping mechanism in her own space, taking bits of her being through material goods and creating this environment that was both familiar, foreign, and surreal.
Davion is a model that I met whilst at the St. Patrick’s Day parade this year. In this shoot, I felt he radiated a certain organic, environmental, earthly spirit that I felt was evident in this work. His love for all things relating to the environment and the calming, soothing presence he exuded went hand in hand with the concept of this shoot.
Photographic Manipulation is Prison of the Mind, Spirit, Body contemplates the possessive nature of an art career and the fulfillment versus draining nature of constantly living, breathing, and thinking about art. As a selfportrait, this work solidifies and legitimizes the feeling of being in the darkroom until the early hours of the morning and the passion that goes behind the work you create and contemplation of if all of it is really worth it in the end.
My friend Emily, modeling here, looks fearfully as American flags pop out of her ears. Much of my work during 2020-2021 was fueled by rage and critique against America amidst the 2020 election, and this series was no different, questioning all I knew about pride, bias, stereotypes, capitalism, and business.
If You Could See Me Now is a 35mm film enlargement that double exposes two separate self-portraits. Alter egos and dual personalities is a practice and performance that I have been investigating and how it relates to my perception of self, vanity, and sanity. I enjoy ski masks quite a bit as a fashion statement as well as the way in which they hide the face but reveal the most distinguishing features. This piece is one that is to enlighten but also disturb, creating this world between the self, asking which of either the “fake” or “true” person is more authentic than the other.
