My son Sebastian is currently studying A Level photography and is in the process of building a portfolio. One of his recent photographs taken of his friend Alex appealed to me for its subjectivity and content. The monotone image shows a young man wearing a hooded top, head lowered and face covered outside in the rain. Brightly coloured writing on his clothing is reversed and inverted but is still legible but conflicted.
I found this image both disturbing and very powerful, it spoke of the issues young people especially young men face today with identity, position in society and social pressures.
I chose to make a painting based on this image with slight alterations keeping its lineage very clear. The main colour way would be red and black, after a few experiments chose to retain the original colour and design of the text. The image I feel shows a range of emotions despite no facial features being visible. Teenage anxieties and frustrations, their vulnerabilities in our modern cultural and socio-economic environment, their prospects of education or employment and the uncertainty of their immediate and long term future. The text discovered is reversed but uncomplicated, it shows a repression and menace but is trying to be heard like a cry for help as much as a shout of defiance. The figure is faceless, showing signs of being non-human, an alien of sorts or animalistic, threatening and menacing or vulnerable and hurting?
Michael Palmer 