Artist statement: ‘Brute’ is an unidentified portrait of my son Louie and is drawn from my most recent series of photographs Not good at human.
Louie was 13 years old when we started making these photographs in 2014. I thought we’d continue until he was 18, then we would go through all the photographs and let him work out which images were okay for a book. I then realised there was an exhibition in the developing body of work which fast became Not good at human, and was first exhibited in Sydney, Australia in 2016.
Louie and I had been having a few hard years adjusting to Los Angeles after moving here in 2011, so I started taking photos as a way of recording his teenage years and to give us a project to work on together. The concept came to me when a friend of mine described himself as ‘not good at human’. I thought this applied to my son and me – as our culture shock and the resulting inability to make human connections became profound in LA – and basically what it means to be human.
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Also known as Giclee prints or bubble-jet prints, pigment ink-jet prints are generated by computer printers from digital or scanned files using dye-based or pigment-based inks. A series of nozzles spray tiny droplets of ink onto the paper surface in a precise pattern that corresponds to the digital image file. In dye-based prints the ink soaks into the paper, whereas in pigment-based prints the ink rests and dries on top of the paper surface.
Whilst the term is broad, pigment ink-jet prints have come to be associated with prints produced on fine art papers. They are the most versatile and archival method of printing available to photographers today. A wide variety of material on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolour paper, cotton canvas or pre-coated canvas.
