Using a variety of everyday materials, artist Jean-Pierre Seguin creates portraits by combining Pointillist techniques with collage. He uses everything from buttons and thread to plastic toy soldiers glued to the canvas to develop the series, entitled Assemblages. Through the use of unique materials, Seguin says he wants to “disturb viewers' perceptions” and encourage his viewers to move around the piece in order to gain a better visual understanding of each piece, which can be described as both a formal representation as well as an abstraction.
From a distance, the detailed portraits are clear and distinct faces, but upon closer investigation, the faces begin to disappear as the details of the selected materials reveal themselves. In his artist statement, Seguin explains, “Through his or her motion, the spectator becomes a kind of zoom lens, varying focal length to produce effects of nearness and distance. Approaching the image to get a better look, viewers lose their grip on the identifiable reality of the photograph; reference points that normally serve to guide viewers of photography evade them here.”
