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What Kind of Man Would I Be? – Tân Khánh Cao

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WHAT KIND OF MAN WOULD I BE? is a photo series of self portraits of myself as a man that investigates how the mask can bring truth closer to the surface. What we hide behind is informed by what we have to hide. As an artist, I am interested in the lives behind a face — a presence lived, dreamed, remembered, forgotten – and in the mask that obscures it. We most often mask to hide hurt, fear, and the soil of experiences those feelings grew from. If you look closely, the covering, rather than conceals, points out – the mask reveals. We understand that this is not to be acknowledged in society to the point we often don’t see it. It is symptomatic of the syndrome in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. We all tacitly agree to this and expect it of one another. No one told us why while we were being taught to do this. We are conditioned into this collective cultural blindness so early that we rarely think to ask. In many non-Western cultures, masks are spiritual or magical tools. Masks are used

Installation photo by Jay Jones courtesy of the Luggage Store Gallery. If I had been born a boy, What would the world have taught me? How would the world treat me? How would I treat the world? How would I wear my insecurity? My pride? What would I do with my vulnerability, my fear, anger? How would I have understood and expressed myself? How would I have navigated the constraints and freedoms of “manhood”? How would I love? WHAT KIND OF MAN WOULD I BE? is a photo series of self portraits of myself as a man that investigates how the mask can bring truth closer to the surface. What we hide behin

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