The Masked Project: 100 Portraits
The Masked Project: 100 Portraits
Ashley Murphy
8.5 x 11 hardcover coffee table book with premium black & white images. 216 pages. ISBN: 978-1944528102
This signed coffee table edition offers intimate encounters with each subject, including full-bleed images extending edge to edge. This book will be printed in small print runs and availability will vary.
ABOUT:
This is not about a virus. This is about us.
The Masked Project presents 100 portraits taken by photographer Ashley Murphy during the spring 2020 surge of COVID-19. From behind cotton and polypropylene, stars and grommets, leather and paisley, feathers and studs, eyes unmask worlds about personhood and pandemic life. The collection and flash reflections from Murphy’s brief portrait sessions are moving reminders that alongside fear of the unknown stands the refusal to shrink and the unrelenting drive for self-expression. From a safe distance, we emerge bold and brave, known and remembered.
PRESS:
August 22, 2020: Mention in “Small Press, Big Voices: Erin Wood’s Little Rock-based Et Alia Press Publishes writers who have something to say” by Sean Clancy for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
July 7, 2020: Cary Jenkins for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “Facial expressions: Artist uses downtown walls to document the times with The Masked Project”
June 18, 2020: “The Masked Project” Public Art Installation Unveiled in Downtown Little Rock
June 18, 2020: KARK TV “Downtown Little Rock partnership unveils new public art installation: The Masked Project by Ashley Murphy”
May 3, 2020: “Mask-erful: Photographer seeks to capture the aesthetic of social distancing” by Ellis Widner for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
May 1, 2020: “The Masked Project” in Inviting Arkansas
ARTIST STATEMENT:
As a photographer, I have always been fascinated with the eyes. With more people covering their faces during the global pandemic of COVID-19, we are offered a unique opportunity to focus on the eyes and the individuality of each person. This is not a series promoting whether or not these are safe coverings, or a series promoting going out in public. I traveled to homes, businesses, and public spaces, mostly near my home in Arkansas, to photograph each portrait with my 200mm lens. I texted on arrival and we met at a safe distance outside for a brief time.
Things I learned:
• The photographs are just part of this project. Talking, even briefly, with the subjects gave me insight to what others are thinking and doing during the pandemic, some of which I’ve shared in the accompanying text.
• People hunger for creativity and still yearn to express themselves during this time, even if it is just for a moment.
• Kids are still just kids. The weight of what is going on in the world is nothing compared to the innocence of genuine excitement from children seeing someone new after months of quarantine. The parents I’ve encountered have done an amazing job of teaching their children to maintain a safe distance while still laughing and having fun.
• While the virus’s impact varies widely, the moments I looked through my lens and into the subjects’ eyes made me feel as if we truly are all in this together, surviving uncertainty, enduring struggles, making adjustments to this “new normal,” navigating fears, and embracing hope.
Many of my subjects have said this experience was exciting. A simple, quick photoshoot outside their home became something much more. It is a way to be a part of something bigger, a way to show the world who we are.
The Masked Project has been a creative outlet, a way to document this time, and a means not only to briefly interact with those who were ultimately distilled into these 100 images, but to really see them—to take time out of my day, pause, and see them. It has been an inspiring experience.
This is not about a virus.
This is about us.
