12” x 19”
Digital Print, paint, tissue paper, glue, tape.
A photographic excerpt from Can You Read My ABCs? series, which simulates the lip-reading communication mode by revealing how difficult it is to distinguish one letter from another. I present thirty-eight photographs of myself saying each letter of the alphabet, once or twice, in a non-sequential manner. Viewers can approach the work hoping to understand, and yet find themselves confronted by the frustration of mixing up letters spoken in the photographs. Likewise, in my world, there are times when I mistake one letter for another, and then cannot infer the message of the speaker. I wanted to show visually how difficult it is to understand letters “on the lips.” This piece allows the audience to experience what I experience. For example, the letter pairs ‘p’ and ‘b’ and ‘d’ and ‘t,’ are formed similarly on the lips, and impossible to distinguish. I further push the concept of barriers using white tissue paper as well as silver metallic acrylic paint as a veil over the photographs.