Joel Meyerowitz 1975

Mike Mandel made this baseball-card style portrait of Joel Meyerowitz using photography and printing. Mandel's process reminds me of the way I build up paintings, layer by layer. He’s working with images like I’m working with brushstrokes. Look at how the black and white tones create a sense of depth and texture. The contrast makes the image pop, giving it a tactile quality even though it’s a flat print. There is an intensity in Meyerowitz’s expression that is emphasized by the starkness of the medium. The man has a glint in his eye. It makes me think of other artists who blur the lines between photography and painting. Someone like Gerhard Richter, maybe, or even earlier, the Photo-Secessionists. It’s all about how we see and interpret the world around us, right? Not just one way, but many ways at once.