Animate Objects

Artist Statement

Every five year old knows objects have a life of their own. Kids live in a world of magic where a plastic ray-gun and an afternoon in the backyard are a ticket to adventure on a distant planet.

Animate Objects is a portrait series at heart. Some images call back to specific memories I had when I was five. Others simply live for me in that same spirit.

I love the way optics and cameras see, and I manipulate those tools to convey how I see the world. Every photograph in this exhibition existed, from a particular point of view, at a single moment in time, and was created without digital manipulation,

What you are looking at is real.

If these portraits touch the five year old in you, they’ve done their job. They gave me a great deal of joy to make, and I hope they connect with the child that still resides within you.

— Mark Robert Halper