JUSTIN ATKINS + STEVEN RESTAGNO: Mirage

PHOTOGRAPHY HAS THE BENEFIT of being a malleable medium in that it’s a tool with the capability of crossing its own traditional borders. Collaboration, for painter Steven Restagno and a photographer Justin Atkins, came naturally. The eye of a figurative painter and the gaze of photographer combined to explore visual ideas and compositions, and to examine the deeply personal emotional territory of beauty and love.

“Working together and photographing each other was ultimately about exploring vulnerability and trust. This was our first project together. This work merged our skills and aesthetic sensibilities, pulling from Justin’s practice as a photographer and Steven’s as figurative painter. Using mirrors and water, the goal was to place ourselves in an imaginary and transitional space, where the relationship between submersion and surfacing are ambiguous. The results are fluid, unfamiliar meditations on the body, vulnerability, and sexuality.