Jonathan Gitelson
Titles and Descriptions
Jonathan Gitelson was born in New York in 1975 and currently resides in Chicago. He works in the mediums of photography, book arts and film and he recently had a one man show at Peter Miller Gallery in Chicago (www.petermillergallery.com). Gitelson recently completed his M.F.A. at Columbia College in Chicago and is now teaching at numerous institutions throughout the city. Additional images are available on his website: www.thegit.net
Artist Statement
Commonplace things fascinate me. Overheard
conversations, chance encounters and found objects are just a few of the
seemingly mundane things that have inspired my work. By examining the
overlooked artifacts of everyday life such as discarded letters or receipts, I
catch a glimpse into the daily lives of people in my community.
The process of telling a story with images
is a major theme in my pieces. Film,
literature, and comic books have been my primary influences in this vein, and
they found their way into my work as videos, artists books, and posters,
respectively. The posters are a
cross between storyboards and comic strips and stand at roughly five and a half
feet tall.
Some of my books and posters include multiple
portraits. Though part of a larger
work, I also view the portraits as singular pieces on their own and much of my
work has been exhibited this way, out of the context of the original
setting. As a body of work, my
portraits reflect the overwhelmed awkwardness I feel in relating to the world
at large. I try to capture a
between shots quality in these pictures, finding that moment when the
subjects expression evokes that dazed and bewildered feeling that lies beneath
our competent faades.
Description:
Shaking Hands
with Chuck O Luck was constructed in the spring of 2004 and examines the
ritual of complicated handshakes. It serves as both a storyboard and an
instructional guide. Shaking Hands with Chuck O Luck illustrates an extremely
difficult sequence of hand shaking as performed by my friend Chuck and I.