Jonathan

Photographs of Jonathan in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

Coney Island as home.

Stairs, 2007

Coney Island, 2007.

Already an nostalgic look at Coney Island. An outing with my brother Jonathan. Every photo of Coney Island before gentrification is extraordinarily precious to me. Change is a trademark of New York but I can't help but feel the irreplaceable lost of this unique place. Coney Island was the gritty playground of my childhood.

First Shoot: Ruby

The series ends here.

This last photo is too straight forward to be in the group but I do think it is beautiful.

There tends to be intense pressure to know where a personal project originates or know the contents of the artist statement before even the production of the art. For the first time I am only slightly troubled by the fact that I do not know any of this. Since I am not in an institution, perhaps I can let this project breathe a little. All I acknowledge is my fascination with this plant's eerie mobility, creeping incessantly and enveloping everything in its path.
Encounter and transformation.

Finally!

[Finally!]
For the first time since my arrival in Burlington, I've got an idea! My attraction to the uncanny is resurfacing and this Polaroid is illustrative of this quasi obsession. I am looking for a model/muse right now and when I do find that person, work will commence. Though I am quite nervous that the imagery I have in my mind will not transfer to film... Instant film like Polaroids are such a great medium but there are also a lot of limitations. Choices choices.

[Finally!]
Canon 50D. Thank you, Adorama.

inner necessity

Bathroom
-From series Home, Sweet Home

Jesaca Lin

Home, Sweet Home…

…Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

–Sir Henry Bishop

Home, Sweet Home addresses perceived sociological and psychological effects of poverty on the development of a particular family through the use of photography. Often, family members are our first subjects and we photograph them because of familiarity and proximity. However, the flaws that are seemingly inherent in every family will inevitably surface within the photographs, making such projects one of the hardest for the same reasons. For this project the viewer is introduced to a family and a childhood. Through the selective use of deep shadows; dilapidation; and uniformity of structures, my anxiety as spectator and participant is conveyed. Jonathan Lin is experiencing his childhood before my eyes and the shocking differences between our childhoods became the motivation for this project. I recognize that home can be located in different physical spaces because I’ve experienced relocation. For Jonathan this is the only home he knows.

Photograph taken by Jesaca Lin at the age of 7, Brooklyn, NY.

[Kandinsky, Spiritual in Art]

I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt is combined with a moment of boredom... I make this stuff up.

Add caption

In Conversation

Stairwell

This girl is just trying to stay afloat...

[ Visiting Grandma ]

Lobby

Welcome Home

I don't like you right now
[ Polaroid as Therapy ]

I don't like my tired self, my antisocial self, my mediocre self and my inability to be satisfied with my work, Ever! self. Oh where art thou little novelties of life? My mind deserves at least a few hours of jollification in a metaphysical playground some where far far away...

Undercover

Back to the family project... Sometimes I think if I can paint, a lot of my photographs would and could become paintings. Now what does that say about my work and my relationship to photography?

2.29.08 {jsl}

Cracked Wall

Shadow Puppet

My favorite model.

2.27.08 {jsl}

It's hard to come home sometimes

--Everything about our lives seem to be dilapidated. The place we live, the health services we receive, my brother's education, etc. So many aspects of our lives are affected by poverty. It is all encompassing.

2.26.08 {jsl}

Seizure Precautions --I was there to see my grandpa but I didn't recognize him.

So what will it be? {jsl}

Who will you believe?

My brother Jonathan {jsl}

New images from my family project. It's mid February and my thesis project still feels aimless. My problem is that I've included the spectator in my image making process: is it accessible to them? Do they GET IT? I've lost touch with how inherently personal family history is and what my original motivations were. I must ask myself some hard questions and scrutinize my intent to truly gain clarity.

"He could close his eyes and try to believe that all that mattered was that he knew his work was great... and that other artists respected it... and that History would surely record his achievements... but deep down he knew he was lying to himself. I want to be a Name, goddamn it!--at least that, a name, a name on the lips of the museum curators, gallery owners, collectors, patrons, board members, committee members, Culture hostesses, and their attendant intellectuals and journalists and their Time and Newsweek--all right!--even that!--Time and Newsweek--Oh yes! (ask the shades of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko!)--even the goddamned journalists!
-Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word, 18.

"Pick me pick me pick me pick me pick me pick me...O damnable Uptown! By all means, deny it if asked!--What one knows, in one's cheating heart, and what one says are two different things!" -Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word, 19.

Darlings! {jsl}

We are panda bears in a bamboo forest- free, elusive and highly indulgent...

Ballyvaughan Buddies {dst}

For life.

A Vermont Winter's Night {dst}

Nothing like it. Post by Danny.

2.6.08 {jsl}

"I perceive you to be changing, if you continue, you will disappear..."
-a stylized translation of what a professor said to me today and it had nothing to do with my art. I am exhausted by this weather.

To be back in Paris... {dst}

*the view outside our hotel window.*Duckies outside the Louvre

Enough Said. Post by Danny.