Fact, Fiction and Truth: Contemporary Portraits 

Fact, Fiction and Truth: Contemporary Portraits examines the work of fourteen photographers, including two teams — whose art explores the nature of photographic truth. From family snapshots to driver’s license photo I.D.’s, pictures of people are among photography’s most common subjects. For most of us they are also a concrete representation of our memories and tangible records of our past. Sufficient to the rival the painted portrait in the 19th century, photographic portraiture from the time of its invention has been closely allied to the documentary tradition — creating a sense that it is some way replicating the experience of seeing and faithfully recording the sitter. By capturing the external visage and with it an implied glimpse of the inner self, it presume an impossible objectivity. The photographic portrait, whether shot with a camera or created on the computer, is a chimera — an image capture in light and time, completed by infernce, closure, and projection in the mind of the viewer