Bill Durgin

        You wouldn't typically expect to use the words "alarming" and "charming" (excuse the rhyme) to describe the same photograph, but that's what Bill Durgin's work does. I first came across his work at the Museum of Fine Arts, for the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Scholar's show in 2008 (he graduated from the school in '95). The photographs shown were from his series of figure studies, awkwardly positioned bodies where limbs and heads often appear non-existent. They are almost a little disturbing at first, certainly enough to make you look again, but the level of humor and play in them is all too obvious. In one description he uses the word "uncanny"; perfect.
        I happened upon his work again yesterday, which I had not investigated further since seeing it at the MFA, and it prompted me to find my way to his website. There I found his series nudes & still lifes which juxtaposes his photographs of human forms with still lifes, which "riff on classical painting genres ... composed to unsettle the relative size of each subject by presenting them on a similar scale ... reverberating between ideas of attraction and abjection". The series (four diptychs) is not only visually stunning but very clever. His other series have an equal level of intrigue, discomfort, and humor.

Durgin's website




images: billdurgin.com/