The photographic work of my dearest friend Chehalis Hegner is featured on the cover of the February/March 2007 edition of the Art New England journal.
Part of the Photographic Resource Center’s PRC: P.O.V. Photography Now and in the Next 30 Years show, the featured cover image is entitled Trophy from her series John.
Of the image, Art New England says:
His eyes closed, he submits to the touch, his face emerging out of dark shadows to provide a non-verbal sensory experience to himself and his explorer.
I choose this selection to quote because, in my humble opinion, it characterizes and conveys the artist’s profound strength as an explorer. Not only is Chehalis able to capture a subject in frank honesty, she has a remarkable and perhaps connatural ability to create a safe haven in which the subject can, as Art New England so astutely points out, completely submit. Submission, insight and honest humanity – be it beautiful or grotesque – is, from my vantage, a centerpiece of her work – and I speak here as a subject as well as consumer of her work.
Chehalis’s images, in their exploration of both the mundane and unusual, coax forth a sensitive and sympathetic humanity and stand as both timeless as well as intensely immediate expressions of our collective universal experience.
Congratulations on making the cover Chehalis!
See more of Chehalis’s work, please visit her website at www.chehalishegner.com. You can also find a wide selection of her work on her extensive Flickr site.
PRC also maintains a Flickr presence and candid images from the opening can be viewed here.