For my project “Orchidaceae,” I would find my subjects riding the subway. I didn’t look in any deliberate kind of way; rather, I found the randomness of chance meetings exciting. I was drawn to youth; the young lady with her whole life in front of her, with vestiges of the child still present. Perhaps that sounds perverse, but I felt I was reacting in some way to our youth-obsessed culture. I wanted to investigate for myself that standing, and, truth be told, ancient desire.

For my project, I directed the gaze to mimic the state I first saw the girl in. Often [she was] lost in thought or a daydream, avoiding the gaze of other passengers as a form of protection from loons. The blank public face or the commuter’s poker face keeps you safe, but also suggested to me a clandestine interior life. I remembered my own thoughts as a girl, my crushes and self-consciousness, and felt incredible empathy for the awkwardness of girlhood. That said, I could never pretend to really know my subject in the brief time we spent together and am not sure that would matter since the portrait is not about the unique characteristics of the subject’s personality but rather the story her face has told me. The ruddiness of the cheek, for example, or the fullness of the lip suggests qualities that may or may not be true for that person. That said, much is revealed. For example Maya’s smile strikes me as more of a true portrait than some of the others.

The dictionary defines “orchidaceae” as an enormous, cosmopolitan family of perennial, terrestrial, and epiphytic plants, often characterized by fleshy tubers and unusual blooms. I came upon the definition of the orchid family towards the end of my project and felt it related to my process and my subjects. I imagined myself at times to be in the metaphorical position of an urban botanist searching for rare, perhaps even anachronistic, kinds of beauty. I wanted to relate my project to the natural world [which is] deliberately opposed to artifice. For example, the albino ladies I photographed are natural blondes—the real deal.

I like to take day trips on public transportation, or bike to new neighborhoods to see what’s there. I had a picture in my last show of the beach in Far Rockaway from one of the last stops on the A [subway] line. The stop was called Beach 69 and was on an elevated platform. The view was of a crossroad, an empty overgrown lot, an unused stretch of beach, the ocean, then the horizon line. I loved that this was still part of New York City. Lately I’ve been working [on] city streets more and working on rooftops. I’m into the city at night, all its wild energy and manmade chaos.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2007
• Muse, The Fugitive, & The Frequency, Bellwether, New York

2005
• Love Parade, Bellwether, New York

Conclusion:
Tanyth Berkeley working on a project with transgendered women and am investigating my relationship to subjects who have become my muse.

what to Do Next...

Find more information about Tanyth Berkeley Exhibitions or looking for his paintings please visit us on http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/tanyth_berkeley.htm