Who Am I?

— CM

-photography by Colin Mercer

When people ask me what my artistic influences are I find it rather tricky to give a complete answer. Although I appreciate a lot of similar artists I very rarely take huge amounts of influence from a particular artist or their artwork. What I can say I do is I look at the person in general whether it be an artist or a family member or even a random person on the street and take the essence of emotion from it. I find myself influenced by peoples expressions and the story that lies deep within them, by their experiences and understanding of what emotions humans have gone through and how their faces can project that. I am interested in human form and identity, intimate spaces and capturing a moment in time. Some of my photographs aren’t particularly the best quality or composed to a general photographers standard but I would like to think they capture that beautiful moment in time.

I then began to find an escapism through being creative and out of this became what I believe to be both a positive and a negative. Although I grew up being artistic and expressing my creativity I also took on the role of being a perfectionist, everything had to be perfect otherwise I would find myself frustrated. I began noticing a lot of negativity in the world and knew that not many people were doing things to change this. I grew up rather quick and skipped out on a huge part of my childhood but found myself being inspired by my own life and what was in it. I began to see things on a different level, I noticed particular situations and would see the beauty in the smallest of things. It wasn’t until I picked up a camera or a notepad and pen that I found my sense of escapism, I just didn’t realise that one day it could potentially be my art work.

At an early age women had an essential feature in my life, some of them becoming role models that helped shape a better future for myself. Growing up I always looked at women on a higher level, a more superior level. I believe this was down to the fact that I never had a sufficient male role model in my life. Many of the male figures that did come into my life proved to be negative ones. Many in which conflicted abuse upon myself and the females that I grew up with. As I got older I started to notice the power that women had within them, the strength and the courage to over come problems in a more efficient way. I of course know this isn’t the case for a lot of people but for myself at an early age I started to acknowledge these ways and use them for myself.