Miriam Waterman - On Abuse
by: Z Behl | posted: Nov 30, 2009
Until You Have Something Important to Say, Shut the Fuck Up is the first in a series of Miriam Waterman’s self-portraits about verbal abuse. The photo depicts her head downturned, in the lower half of the frame, and a bandana sealing off her voice sports the word “fuck.” “Shut” is imprinted on her forehead, and the t and p are lost, traveling across her face, obscured by the camera’s perspective, as if to read “shut he fuck u.” The black and white inversion is the only digital alteration she makes, with no retouching involved. Waterman is a purist, sometimes shooting 400 versions in one sitting before electing a final image.
Reflecting on her experience with a verbally abusive partner, each ugly phrase she wore in the face of their relationship is shown embedded on her body. The text is lettered in vintage rubber stamps, inherited from the Waterman family’s 300-acre farm in Southern California. They were used to label boxes of produce, and the font has the feel of commercial merchandise. Occasionally the black-inked letters will bleed, if Miriam sweats, but since the photos are inverted they only appear more ghostlike and ephemeral as a result. These words are not physically present, like scars, but worn invisibly and ignored by society. The abuse goes unnoticed and the emotional damage it incurs is only exposed by such a carefully examined project, so intimate a picture is neither comfortable nor disturbing to see. One must refer to the title for the full phrase to be revealed.
In You’re Nothing but a Power Hungry Bitch the words “power” and “hungry” appear on either arm. Her arms are raised in fists, bent at the elbows like a body builder. The word “Bitch” sits dead center on her back. The stark shadow cast by her pose echoes the shape of her biceps in this stance. Because of the inversion it reads as part of her figure, with doubled arms she looks especially emasculated.
At 20x30 the prints are going to be shown at Coup d’oeil Art Consortium as part of a group show on human behavior. Part of PhotoNola, the show is up December 5-26, opening December 12th.
Waterman’s work has always been about relationships. Her paintings are all figurative and she considers each to be a self-portrait. She uses the same set of stamps to make text in her paintings, and she credits her interest in industrial materials to her father, a contractor who taught her the value of manual dexterity. In the last two years she has taken a hiatus from painting, and photography has provided her with a new lens to analyze human interaction: she can be part of the relationship she is documenting.
After finishing the series of self-portraits in 2008, she designed a project meant to analyze self-perception from a social and psychological perspective. As a native Californian in New Orleans, Waterman became aware of the incredible pocket of artists living and working here. Her studio at the Ark Collective afforded her the opportunity to meet many New Orleans artists with stories to share. She made them the focus of her next project.
There were three parameters for this assignment: first, the subject must pick a word or phrase that epitomized her. Although this question often took weeks or months for the model to answer, the subject would come to Miriam with her word, ready to be photographed. Second, the subject must choose the location of the text on her body and third, the setting of the photo shoot.
A process-oriented photographer, Waterman would partake in a dance with her models after these three criteria were decided upon. With no retouching or hand printing, the shoot had to suffice as the entire artistic experience, so every decision made was intentional, the power dynamic deliberate between photographer and subject. Waterman herself would ink the letters and do the stamping, on location, on set. She would refuse to tell her model what to do, allowing them to assume whatever pose felt natural, usually over a period of two hours. The models determined their degree of nudity seemingly on the spot, often partially disrobing in order to show off their private word. Occasionally in disrobing another story is told, a scar appears as evidence, such as in the photograph Carl.
“Alive” is written across Carl’s torso, alongside the evidence of a six-inch incision. This operation removed a cancer, and the nature of the pose, prostrate on the floor, brings the immediacy and direness of the sickness to life. Waterman takes on the role of healer with her subjects. In visiting Keith Duncan at GSL Art Projects, the gallery where he had work hanging, he exposed his back to her, allowing her to print his chosen word, “enigma,” on it. Vulnerabilities are turned into vantage points. Experience, even traumatic experience, is captured as inner strength in this striking, personal series.
Significantly, Waterman maintains the right to choose which photos she uses. Respecting the wishes of her models, she refrains from using anything they hate, but out of 400 photos she decides on the best representation. The mood and lighting is collaborative, she will confer with her subject, allow them to view her progress as she shoots, and discuss technical options. Waterman acts as a vehicle, casting artists in whatever light they choose.
Her next ambition for this project is to broaden her subject pool. Waterman wants to approach homeless people, visit shelters, and trade her services for permission to photograph. Negotiating the dynamic of used to user, Waterman is ever conscious of empowering her models. Engaged intimately with them and their histories of abuse, she employs photography as a record of things unsaid, undone, unresolved. She searches for what is not being communicated within someone, and provides an explicit outlet, a scripted performance of ones deepest insecurity. Her interest lies in self-inhibiting psychologies, and she nobly uses her art to counteract them.
