JACK WILKIE-JANS | 'Don’t Grab That Scabby Hand' | 2020 | Digital Photograph on Cotton Rag Paper | H 610 x W 610 mm

"These pieces are created as discreetly as each heartbeat pulses. This body of work isn’t the product of any grand character‑building exercise or alter‑ego invention—I’m no David Bowie. Though the works (made over the past five years) are connected and vital to one another, they remain separate all the same. Each had its own purpose at the moment it was created; I simply didn’t pay much attention to what that purpose was at the time. In that sense, showing them now makes more sense to me in retrospect than it ever did in the moment. Let me disabuse audiences of one thing: these images are not “me.” I am perfectly fine, and singular. I just couldn’t afford actors, camera assistants, costuming, or makeup. When I take on characters, they’re nothing more than glimpses of shadows—archetypes of the shadowed mind and the troubled heart. Besides, it’s you whom you should be looking to find in these works, not me."

- Jack Wilkie-Jans