TIMOTHY PERKINS
Perkins, under a grant from the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles d'Île-de-France, has been in residency at the Collège République Nanterre since December 2012. A description of his project "sur la mémoire" can be found here.
Perkins is also this spring holding a series of workshops funded by the Conseil Général Hauts-de-Seine. The workshops are a response to the exhibition "Architectures - Arts plastiques - Nanterre" for sudents of Asnières, Colombes and Malakoff junior high schools.
Drawing the figure in very light pencil lines, pale greys or slight contrasts leaves an image that is not readily visible. It takes time for the eye to adjust to this level of presence, to see the figure. And then as one looks, with time, one begins to perceive not only the figure but also details, depth in the thin layers of paint and in the fine lines of the drawing.
In thus documenting the figure, its presence on the surface of the canvas, on paper or in a photograph, in recording an atmosphere, a light, a memory, a moment I'm questioning presence, time, silence. I'm documenting what one sees, what one tries to see, to understand what is in fact in front of us, to capture the essence of a thing. I'm working on the very edge of perception, recording a maximum of information while simultaneously limiting the presence of this information to the very thinnest of contrasts.
