Hayman's silver gelatin prints appear as a collection of small portals that permit viewers a momentary glimpse into another era. Ranging from household items, to portraits, and some of New York City's most impressive landmarks, the photographs' soft focus and pictorialist aesthetic evoke the work... Read more
Hayman’s silver gelatin prints appear as a collection of small portals that permit viewers a momentary glimpse into another era. Ranging from household items, to portraits, and some of New York City’s most impressive landmarks, the photographs’ soft focus and pictorialist aesthetic evoke the work of early 20th century photographers Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz.
The granular texture of the photographs—created in the darkroom by diffusing light through semi-translucent layers, each handcrafted by Hayman—make their subjects appear as apparitions emerging from a fog or obscured by a light curtain of white noise. For example, in Kate, a woman with a distant stare, shaded by a bonnet, seems to have recently materialized from the gray matter of her surroundings. Viewers are left to wonder whether they are seeing the woman or her ghost.
Hayman’s unorthodox compositions also enhance his work’s enigmatic quality. The objects in his photographs are often unbalanced; the faces of his subjects typically turned away or obscured by one of his meticulously handcrafted frames. Pose, the image included on the exhibit invitation, depicts a man’s hulking torso from chin to pelvis, his left arm reaching across his body. He is muscled but undefined, his pose guarded and almost modest. The viewer feels like someone intruding on an intimate moment. Like most of Hayman’s works, it is as if what was captured on film is only one piece of a longer narrative—and that the true story is occurring beyond the edges of the photograph. “I’m only providing one chapter of the story—it’s up to the viewer to write the rest of it,” says Hayman.
