Child Face on display at McGuffey Art Center

I am currently exhibiting a series of photographs as part of an art-science collaboration with Vanessa LoBue, Ph.D., and the Child Study Center at U.Va. The show will be up through Nov. 22nd at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville.

These pictures were originally made for a stimulus set intended for use in scientific studies. The children in these photographs exhibit specific combinations of muscle movements that are reliably characteristic of adult displays of emotion in empirical research.

Some expressions appear to transcend age, others inspire more questions: though it is easy—almost expected—to see a child expressing happiness, it is harder to observe the contradiction between the seemingly weathered intensity of negative expressions and the purity inherent in the facial characteristics of children. Do these expressions draw us in out of concern, or repel us by activating our own fears? Perhaps harder still is the observation of a child emoting nothing at all. What is going on behind those inscrutable faces?

For this series, I strove to highlight the range and complexity of human emotion, as well as the range and complexity inherent in our own responses to these expressions.

Child Face

Nov. 2nd-22nd

Opening Reception Nov. 6th, 5:30-7:30pm

McGuffey Art Center

201 2nd St. SW

Charlottesville, VA 22902