Paul Litherland - Artist Statement

Artist Statement – Paul Litherland

I make photographs and produce multimedia performances. My photographic work consists of series of self-portraits, in which I assume characters and viewer positions to explore themes of vulnerability, risk taking, and masculinity. I am interested in fakery. I want the unreal to stand in for the real. I want the photograph of the painting to stand in for the painting. I want the photograph of me to be me. I want the fake thing to be so fake that it has to tell the truth.

I am compelled to create situations of physical and psychological danger. I am interested in the difference between risk taking and being vulnerable. Finding ways to go through fear without panicking is a game of self-control that I enjoy on an almost daily basis. This desire to live an intense experience, as seen through the acts of dressing in drag, BASE jumping, and boxing is translated directly into my art practice. I use these difficult, complex and sometimes cumbersome situations as mediums for direct and honest communications.

My most recent works include multimedia productions and photographic projects such as: Art Photography, a photographic project inspired by the background information that accompanies an artwork when it is photographed badly. It was developed while in residence in Mexico City. The exhibition Absolutely Fabulous, presented in 2006, is a series of photographic self portraits revealing the construction of masculinity through role playing. The projects BOX,and ASCII Fighter, are boxing performances created for Le Rencontre Internationale d’art Performance, in Québec City, 2006, and Digifest, in Toronto (2004). There are two percussion performances, Three-bit Thumbnail, for Networkings, a new media and performance festival in Halifax 2003 and BABBLE, Moismulti (Québec City), Tranztech, (Toronto) 2002 and Galerie B312, (Montréal) 2001. In all of the performances, sensors are wired to a computer interface allowing the performers to write messages using text and video. The messages referred to how technology transforms the meaning of what is being said. In the performance/installation Security/Insecurité, security guards are hired to sleep on the floor, while an image of a mutilated but thriving tree is projected overhead. In this work, authority figures present themselves in non authoritative positions, creating an interesting dialogue between their position in society and their position in the room. Another work, Hesitation, was an installation of photographs in the form of traffic signs installed on lampposts along Boulevard St. Laurent - the main east - west dividing street of Montreal. The photographs portrayed people engaged in difficult and awkward communications.

Formally, I am interested in making photographs that try to stand in for the thing they are representing, I want the line between being a representation and the thing represented to be blurry. If I show you a photograph of a painting and tell you that the painting was made for the photograph, I am bringing into question the location of the art object. Does the value of the work as an art object lie in its physical representation or its references? One could say that the paintings value changes when it is copied. I am interested in that transformation.

Paul Litherland