Chantelle Minarcine

Duchenne exercised, 2005

Cast resin and plaster, wood

What can it possibly mean when we say "It is written all over your face" or "I can see it in your eyes"? How can we, just by looking at someone's face, tell what he or she is thinking, feeling and maybe even trying to hide? It is the face with which we make our first impressions and assumptions about a person. Gender, race, emotional states, age, health, attractiveness are all defined there. Every society on Earth uses the same basic forms of facial expression, making the face the key to the true universal language and some say the proof of having a soul.

I have always been fascinated by they way people interact in social environments, how we take on characters to suit our roles or assert ourselves depending on the company. For me, all these actions and cues are overwhelming. Some can read these emotional responses easily; they become car salesmen. Others misread or cannot read expressions and are difficult to communicate with. In large cities people deal with communication problems by wearing a "stone face,” feeling that showing facial emotion will disrupt the harmony of the group. Why is the face, so full of pleasure and sensation, the cause of such harmful disruption?

I have dissected the face. I am picking apart basic features to see how they work together. I ask: how do we clue into another's emotional states, what defines gender or race, attractiveness or age, to what extent do we use the face to communicate and what happens when we take all this and mix it up.