NYAB Event - Travis LeRoy Southworth "Where I end and you begin #3"

Travis LeRoy Southworth "Where I end and you begin #3"

Mixed Greens Gallery

This event has ended.

Mixed Greens announces a site-specific window installation by Travis LeRoy Southworth. In his first solo project in New York City, he will use all three of Mixed Greens’ exterior windows to create one large, glowing Duratrans piece.

Growing up in a military family, Southworth developed an interest in shifting space, both physical and emotional. Working as a photo-retoucher, he eliminated imperfections such as blemishes, shadows, dust and the other unsavory elements in photographic portraits. As an artist, he combines those two very disparate parts of his life to make artwork that moves beyond conventional representation and redefines portraiture.

For this site-specific project, Southworth photographed the faces of twenty-four individuals—mounters, collectors, curators and artists—whom he met in the art world since moving to New York two years ago. Then, utilizing his photo-retouching skills, he developed a meticulous and satisfying process that left only the imperfections in each photo. The resulting collection of fragments and stray marks becomes the final Twomblyesque, minimalist, digital portrait.

Where I End and You Begin #3 combines all of these fragmented portraits into one finalized work. Southworth’s “self-portrait” lives at the center of the piece and the other “portraits” spiral out. A solar system begins to take shape with the people he knows best orbiting closest and those less familiar living at the outer fringe.

Inside the gallery, visitors can view a video project that animates the erasure and ultimate explosion of Southworth’s self-portrait. Over the course of the animation, his complete portrait dissolves and is swallowed by the white of the screen. While the window installation is a clean, lyrical representation of Southworth’s art world, the video highlights the more tedious and absurd aspects of digital manipulation. It demonstrates the compulsive process and more performative elements in the work.