Hands and Minds: A Group Portrait of Salina’s Youth in the Year 2000 (details); 2000; 90 triptych portraits incorporating inkjet photographic prints, laser-printed texts and vinyl lettering; dimensions variable, project commisioned by the Salina Art Center, Salina, Kansas.

The veneer of youth culture, which includes clothes, music, magazines, toys, television, film and video, is almost indistinguishable from Salina, Kansas to Chicago, New York to London and Tokyo. The Nike swoosh is an omnipresent symbol of global consumerism, and Michael Jordan is probably the most recognizable figure in the world. What, however, are the internal differences between children from all these locales, and what are the correlations between the ways that children see themselves and the ways that the external world sees them?

The convention of the portrait is one of the oldest and most enduring in artmaking. The approach to portraiture embodied within this project takes this convention and adds several adjunctive elements to it. Not only are the children represented by a more traditional half-figure photographic image, but they also represent themselves through the drawings or writings which they have imposed upon their own hands and arms. Additionally, their thoughts about the world in text form amplify the visual components, leading to a more profound perception of each child.