appEARances
Twelve Digital Prints

a pressure point
a place for whispers
a part of the body for a lover to nibble

In the ear we can see an overlooked uniqueness literally. Noticing, here in the ear, our differences in age, gender, and race are not for the purposes of categorizing, like the pseudo-scientific racists or criminalists photographers of the early 20th Century, but for the sheer pleasure of the body's diverse beauty.

The ear remains an under noticed part of the body. The ear is not yet a "cliché" symbolic references like the hand, eye or lips have become in many artistic images.The nebulous meaning of "ear" allows my images more room to play with various notions in a visual territory which have not been completely defined.

On the symbolic level the ear offers an open reading and on the physiological level the ear, like the finger print or DNA itself, is one of the most unique identifiers for an individual. The ear connecting directly to the brain has a link directly to memory of an exclusive set of experiences as well as to the subconscious of a particular person. The ear also continues to mature and change through out the life cycle. And perhaps like the rings of a tree it contains a physical log of each individuals personal history. According to French acupuncture practice the of ear contains points that map every other region of the body.

Rachel J. Siegel
Spring 2000