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Portraits of People and Paper - NYTimes.com

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Portrait of People and Paper

Rena Silverman Apr. 9, 2015 2
SNEAKPEEK:ThisweekLensisfeaturingaselectionofphotographersattendingtheNew
YorkPortfolioReview.
Patricia Voulgaris had been taking documentary-style color photographs of her family for a
school project about memory when she noticed a long braid worn by a classmate. It reminded
her of childhood, growing up the daughter of a hairdresser. And that helped her refine her
project.
She was always wearing this braid in class, said Ms. Voulgaris, who attended the School of
Visual Arts. And I loved the idea of a braid. It symbolizes childhood and memories, and thats
what I was concentrating on.
Inspired by artists like Michele Abeles and Kate Steciw, she invited her classmate to go back to
her Long Island home for an experiment.
I was like, If you just sit down and let me fold paper on top of you, Ill just make this work
somehow, Ms. Voulgaris said. After two hours of setting up around her friend with Scotch tape
and folded paper, Ms. Voulgaris took a picture with her medium-format camera.
I kind of just took a chance, really, she said.
Once she saw the result a tight, black braid with a few loose strands hanging from a blinding
white cloak of clean-cut paper Ms. Voulgaris knew immediately that she had a project.
Encouraged by her senior thesis professor, she set out to explore and expand her concept, first
incorporating parts of her own body into some images. In Self portrait one, only a sliver of her

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/portraits-of-people-and-paper/

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Portraits of People and Paper - NYTimes.com

body is exposed on the left. Darker tones of folded materials extend outward and meet a
shadowed L, which in turn guards a sharp, bright rectangle.
By placing myself in the frame, it becomes a commentary on life itself, Ms. Voulgaris
explained. Each moment is fragile and fleeting.
How fleeting? Ms. Voulgaris, who worked mainly at night when it was quiet, started removing
herself from the images entirely. She made collages with layers of chopped-up paper or molded
papier-mch, photographed the results and inverted the final images on a computer.
As time passes things become fragmented, she said. So you can sort of remember certain
qualities of a memory or person or particular place. And these memories as time passes, they
become broken down into simple forms, such as patterns or shapes. I was really interested in
how photographs are constructed, how theyre deconstructed, what sort of happens in the
middle, and whats the final image. So I kind of took all these ideas and squashed it into one.
In Space, black-and-white paper juts out in the center at its fold against a galaxy of dots,
which are differentiated by the slightest of tones. For this, Ms. Voulgaris arranged (and
rearranged) a combination of patterned and plain paper until she got it just right. Then she cut
out shapes in the center, created a fold down the middle, turned on makeshift lights and
snapped a photo of the whole thing, later inverting it on a screen.
Masked shows two eyes peering through blackness, with a crescent moon of white. Although
the eyes look real and the mask flat, Ms. Voulgaris had actually cut out a models eyes from a
magazine and crafted a papier-mch mask on top, which she later sliced down the center with
an X-Acto knife.
The way I work is very complicated and stressful, but then I have to step back and simplify
things at the end of the day, she said. Whatever I created in the first place usually isnt the end
product.
One aesthetic that remained constant from beginning to end, throughout the series and in each
photograph, was her use of extreme contrast, as in Masked.
High contrast keeps the viewer engaged in the image, she said. Most people are likely to
respond to an image that is full of contrast rather than an image that lacks contrast. As a
society, I think we are all attracted to bright and shiny things. Contrast creates this weird
attraction that we seem to embrace.

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Portraits of People and Paper - NYTimes.com

In 2013 and 2014, she created about 25 images for the project, which she vows to remember
each and every photograph from, including the original Braid.
Its like my little baby, she said.
Follow@TriciaVoulgaris,@Rena_Silvermanand@nytimesphotoonTwitter.Lensisalsoon
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2015 The New York Time Compan

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