In the series "Defaced Portraits" I became fascinated with the phenomena of people who photograph, then black out the faces of their subject, sometimes adding a message.  I finds these disfigured pictures shocking, even disturbing since the literal “de-face-ment” is often done by the photographer to his/her own image. This mutilation brings up many questions about the function of the photographs and it problematizes the relationship between the subject, the photographer, and the viewer. In "Defaced Portraits," I seek to explore the uncomfortable relationship between the subjects and the person looking at them, myself included. Pleasure and pain, intimacy and voyeurism, fear and beauty:  caught in the tug of war of oppositional forces, I believe the most interesting place is the space in between. Because that is where the experience of humanity is found.