Catch Me
In collaboration with Nicholas Kontaxis
Nicholas, living with severe physical and developmental challenges and having experienced over 75,000 seizures, uses art as his only means of expression, creating large-scale works that convey a global message of resilience and inspiration.
I first had the opportunity to see Nick’s work when he was getting ready for an exhibition at UTA Artist Space for his latest collection, grouped under the heading: “Catch Me.” I had been working for UTA doing short documentaries of each new artist they exhibited, and I can still remember being told about Nick and being extremely excited and intrigued to meet him and capture his process. “Catch me” is a reference to the numerous daily seizures he experiences and the ongoing risk of falling that painting presents for him.
I have photographed and filmed Nick many times now, each time is a deep journey for me that I relish taking. He has an incredible family and support system around him that I get to spend time with and Nick himself is one of my favorite artists to work with. To me, he represents pure creativity and to watch him tackle a canvas is always a reminder to me of why I became an artist myself.
Watching Nick flourish and become recognized as a major artist of our time (Forbes 30) has been one of the most rewarding things that this line of work has afforded me. And much of it has culminated in a large-scale and immersive show of his work at the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens, in which my photographs, of both him his studio, feature prominently.
The art of capturing the art:
In this particular video I did of Nick creating, I used a technique I call Still Motion. It entails taking thousands of slow-shutter stills and turning them into a film. Every frame of this is a full frame 35mm photograph. But I also employ some filmmaking techniques in terms of my handling of the camera, so it is in fact a complete hybrid artform.
When Nick is experiencing a seizure, which happens many times throughout our shoots, he stops. It’s a brief pause before he finds his pace again. What I like about this technique for capturing Nick is that, like him, it holds two opposing truths simultaneously; it is both still and moving at the same time.
