This month on Studio Sessions, we’re making time for the face with FACETIME. This series profiles four artists working in portraiture to reveal the character of their subjects by subverting conventions of the art form.
WORDS BY BEN MCHUTCHION
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JORIAN CHARLTON
One of the great historical debates concerning the photographic process is whether photography is best characterized as a dispassionate technology with a documentary function, or as a tool of narrative and artistic expression. The work of Toronto-based photographer Jorian Charlton spans the false divide between document and art. Her portraits are a record of her models and the Caribbean diaspora, but also visually striking and expertly composed works of art that employ a clear aesthetic sensibility.
Charlton’s photography consists mainly of individual and dual portraits, commonly featuring Black, female, and/or queer models. Her work explores, as she puts it, “the depths of human connections,” including themes of family, community, and intimacy. Such themes were on full display in her exhibition last year at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Out of Many, in which she presented decades-old photo slides taken by her father together with examples of her own recent portrait work. The exhibition was likewise an exploration through time, connecting her family’s past with her present community, and attempting to intervene in the collective memory of Black representation that society will form in the future.
In her practice, Charlton finds a balance between recording her muses and pursuing her own vision for the narratives her photos will convey. She sees her photos as a space that allows for the free expression of her models, but also brings her artistry to bear through, for example, the manipulation of lighting and pose. Perhaps Charlton both explores and creates human connection. When we are engaged by the composition of her portraits and the gazes and personalities her models project, is this not an instance of human connection, however tenuous?
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