Jacqueline Mitelman: Facetime

Jacqueline Mitelman has been a portrait photographer since the mid-1970s. She recently received long overdue recognition when she was awarded the 2011 National Photographic Portrait Prize.

Mitelman’s portraits infuse the volatile intensity of the moment with contemplative stillness. Her work explores the potential of photography to both capture a fleeting close-up presence and shape it into a lasting stable form. Combining these processes Mitelman invents her own version of ‘face-time.’ As a recent addition to the networking sites of internet culture, ‘face-time’ implies that the face is not static or fixed but a site of interaction, subject to changing interpretation by those who respond. Through the art of photography her portraits invent new domains for the face, demonstrating its power to expand individual human identity.

This exhibition of some thirty works investigates the development of her portraiture over three decades. Her subjects represent a range of people she has met, including distinguished individuals, many of whom are artists, authors and entertainers, as well as intimate portraits of her friends and family, such as her grandson Henry. In addition to examples of Mitelman’s portraits, this exhibition includes display cases where a collage of images, from more than three decades, can be seen as memory boxes which chronicle her oeuvre.