“A lot of my work has to do with reanimation of taking something that is laying fallow or rotted on the vine, so to speak, and then trying to breathe life back into it.”
Arne Svenson's art practice has led him down numerous and varied paths of visual exploration. From landscape photographs of Las Vegas to portraits of sock monkeys, forensic facial reconstructions, chewed dog toys and medical museum specimens. In 2011 Svenson completed a collaboration with the Andy Warhol Museum, About Face, a series of portraits with a group of autistic teenagers.
First and foremost in Svenson's practice is to seek out the inner life, the essence, of his subjects, whether they be human, inanimate, or something in between. He uses his camera as a reporter uses text, to create a narrative that facilitates the understanding of that which may lie hidden or obscured. This narrative, at times only a whisper or suggestion, weaves throughout his divergent body of work.
Some time ago Svenson began photographing the windows of a neighboring building through the windows of his. He was intrigued not only by the implied stories within the frame of the glass but also by the play of light upon the subjects, the shadows, the framing of the structure. He doesn't photograph anything salacious or demeaning-- instead he records the turn of the head, the graceful arc of a hand, the human form obscured by drapery. Svenson is not photographing the people as specific, identifiable individuals, more as representations of human kind, of us. Careful not to reveal identities, the strength of the imagery lies in fact that we can see ourselves in the anonymous figures of The Neighbors.