Tim Hawkinson

 

I use available materials in much of my work—what- ever is readily at hand and suits the purpose of a given project or idea. The use of my body is an extension of this practice. In previous works that deal with my physical self, I have isolated some specific quality or quantity and, in doing so, distorted other aspects of the figure. Really it's just about looking at something from a different perspective. In an earlier piece called Perspector, I stood in front of a mirror, my nose touching the glass, and sculpted my reflection by applying clay onto the mirror. From my perspective, nose to nose, this figure appeared to have normal proportions. But when I stepped back from this frozen reflection, my features became distorted, with a huge nose and long toes. This was where the idea for this photograph came from. I thought it would be interesting to see what happened if we replaced the mirror with the camera. So I drew my reflection onto a two-way mirror, and Jason shot the photograph from the other side, aligning the drawing with my face.