This collaborative project attempts a symbiosis of painting and photography such that the final work exceeds the limitations of each medium. A painting is first made on the actual upper body of an Indian man, or the face of a man or a woman. The body then becomes a part of a larger canvas as this image is meshed with a two-dimensional "background" painting by photographing the two at once. Further layers of painting are added - and can be manipulated - by a series of various photographic techniques.

The artistic dialogue between an experienced photographer with a bag of tricks accumulated over a lifetime of work, and a younger Pawnee/Yakama painter, straining against the widely-accepted confines of "Indian painting," might well be considered fascinating in and of itself. But, we have only begun to work together, and this direction of merging photography and painting of elaborating the visual possibilities there, seem limitless. Having arrived at the place of visual ambiguity in our most recent pieces, we are already exploring next steps. 

​

Click an image below to start Slide Show