Artist Statement:
Age & Seduction is a group of hand-worked photopolymer gravures that explore the relationship between the aging human body and natural elements. I grew up in the desert collecting dead animals, dried plants and rocks. This landscape has inspired me to seek relationships between the transformation of my own aging body and the processes of decay in the natural world.
I have also been influenced by the cookbook Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses by Isabel Allende. Some of my images pair the body with foods believed to be aphrodisiacs. Allende states that food, like eroticism starts with the eyes. My eyes are drawn to fruits and vegetables past their prime and to bodies that display the evidence of age. I seek to show aging as a natural yet mysterious process.
These images mark the passage of time, contemplating the overlooked and undervalued vestiges of life. There is a tension imbued in the forms that brush up against each other—needles press skin, torsos hide behind branches, and fruit ages like flesh. Often metaphorical, these pictures are performances of self-reflection, pushing the limits of seeing the self, and encouraging the viewer to confront an uncomfortable beauty.
Karen Hymer
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© The Photographer's Eye: A Creative Collective
