Here’s a self portrait that I took yesterday. Lately I’ve been wrestling with performativity in my work. I always feel like no matter what medium I’m working in I’m trying to perform a version of myself. It’s not that I’m that critical of this character I’m performing — I actually think I’m pretty amazing, but I’m feeling hyper self-aware and it often makes me backtrack and second guess myself. I love a metacritical element and I love a self reference, so I’ve been turning this feeling into work itself. In this photo I wanted to show the camera taking my photo, creating this paradox in a Jeff Wall Picture for Women / French New Wave Cinema jump cut kind of way. If I show the thing that is taking this photo, is it like showing the strings that make Peter Pan fly? Does it take the viewer outside of the image and directly into their own lives? If Brecht were alive would he take me out to dinner? I stared directly into the sun to take this photo, because that’s what my character would do for a laugh. That’s what Matty would do. I am Matty… Right guys? Right?
