Ray Hagen 1992

Nancy Andrews made this artwork, Ray Hagen, using photography. The black and white image captures the very human moment of pausing for a cigarette break. It has a film noir-ish sensibility. I can only imagine what was going through Andrews’s mind as she framed this shot. The way the smoke curls and dances in the air, illuminated against the darkness, it’s like a fleeting thought made visible. I see Ray caught in a moment of contemplation, maybe reflecting on life’s complexities, and trying to figure out what it all means. The light and shadow play across his face, so that there's a great mix of the literal and the figurative. The image is very stark, but very telling. Artists are always trying to capture something essential about what it means to be alive, turning the ordinary into something extraordinary. I find that in this photograph, the viewer is invited to bring his own stories to it.