Half-life

Half-Life is a series of works that takes the idea of the portrait and deconstructs
it – both in terms of how we understand and recognise people, and the notional abstractions associated with an individual.

Using the convention of the artist’s self-portrait, this engaging series of digital meta-portraits reinterpret depictions of self and meta-self
by asking, what makes us who we are – the biology of our body or the physics of the objects and environment with which we interact?

We follow the artist as he metaphorically excavates his identity through self portraits and photographs captured at different points in his life. Exploring
his sense of self beyond the recognisable

human form, allowed Mistry to explore different depictions of himself through time and physical space, intent on understanding if and how they merge to create the whole individual, or not.

A whole digital series of meta-portraits emerge that visually mythologise objects and associations familiar to the artist, through manipulation and distortion that results in the identity being distanced from self and ultimately meta-humanised as fragmented and recollectable semblances of self.

The artworks then invite a further scrutiny into this meta that makes us who we are – the little details of things we create, use or exist around that we imbue with the physical and emotional qualities

of ourselves reveal themselves as elements remixed into “Meta Portraits” constructed
to depict an individual beyond the normal humanoid constraints of a traditional portrait.

Who one is, where and when one exists is explored through the patterns of images of objects associated with a person at a particular stage of life – in and out of time.

The work comprises a series of c-type prints and a three channel 4k video (vertically mounted) installation.

Touring Dates & Venues:

15 March – 15 April 2018 AGLOW Space Tainan, Taiwan next-art.tainan.gov.tw

7th – 21st December 2018 INTERACT’18
Lightbox Gallery, LCB Depot, Leicester interactdigitalarts.uk

Funders & Partners: Tainan Government, AGLOW SPACE, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Curated by: Ming Turner

Supported by: Hsin-Yu Chang, Yen-Liang Lin, Yi-Chun Ou