touch was conceived in 2005 when I acquired my first digital pocket camera. The camera enabled me to shoot spontaneously. I was curious to see what would be revealed if my subjects posed with my hand? There would be no rules or limitations.

Would their placement of my hand expose that illusive permitter which defines our comfort zone- our personal space? Would I be invited inside or shut out; kept at arms length? What would it tell of them; what would it say about me?

With over 1,500 touch images taken to date I continue the project with the goal of exposing collective traits and commonalities within groups and societies.

touch

an exploration into personal space. 2005 ongoing…

In his photo series touch, Evans explores the boundaries between subjects. He instructs them to take his hand and place it in the frame of the photograph and by doing so explores the cultural and psychological limits of connectedness. Some take his hand and keep him at a distance while others are prepared to take him into their bodies, literally. The viewer is invited to reflect on the limits of physical contact between strangers, both in its cultural and gendered context, and to explore their own thresh-hold of acceptable touching. touch also challenges the conventions of photographic portraiture. Evans is both subject and photographer as he invades the space of both the sitter and the image. His intervention blows apart the separation of the artist and subject, they can no longer be discrete, and the viewer must consider Evans’ influence over the sitter. This work embodies Evans’ belief that all his photographic portraits have himself as the central subject and that the images he produces of a sitting are a record of an event in which he is central.

Peter E. Ross