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- Barry Comer, 2015
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- Richard Guest, 2015
This is a project by Barry Comer and Richard Guest.
Barry and I have never met in the physical world. He is based in Louisville, Kentucky and I live on the edge of London. I have long admired his drawings. So I jumped at the chance when Barry suggested we work together.
At the top of this post you can see Barry by Barry and Richard by Richard. Having agreed to work on each other’s images in a game of consequences/ exquisite corpse kind of way, we swapped self-portraits.
The idea was to pass the images back and forth a set number of times, each adding to (or subtracting from) both portraits, and responding to the other’s changes. In my case, I had a hidden agenda and sought:
(a) to bring out my idea of who Barry is (based on his blog and my knowledge of him from emails etc), in the picture and make him central to it.
(b) to make myself disappear.
Here are the in-between stages in sequence:
And here are the final images:
Barry Comer, 2015
Richard Guest, 2015
Great idea and great results.
Thanks very much, Rabirius.
That’s a cool collaboration. Barry, you and I all have something in common: none of us have met in the physical world.
🙂 Thanks very much, Cardinal.
Great project!! I enjoy the creations by both of you. Awesome to see your mind’s fusing together this way!
Thanks so much, Ted!
Nice one, fellas!
Thanks so much, Ashley!
So Nice this Richard. I’d say ; A great collaboration! 😀
🙂 Thanks so much, Belinda!
Thank you Richard for a very cool collaboration and for sharing your creativity. It was a pleasure and hope you will agree to do more.
Barry
You’re most welcome and thank you! Yes, it was a lot of fun. Definitely up for more.
Richard
…and for more collaborations to come!!…
Thanks very much, Kari!
Glad your back
Really interesting idea, and the difference between both your final images is quite vast. I think even if you hadn’t put your name under your’s i would have guessed with the drizzled red paint.
Great stuff
Thanks very much, Leon. It was a lot of fun. Ha, yes, I love my drizzled paint.
Reblogged this on and commented:
Thank you Richard for a satisfying, creative experience. Whenever you want to collaborate again, I’m your artist.
Barry
Thanks very much, Barry. Thanks to you too – I’m definitely up for another one.
All the best,
Richard
I am here to service your desires.
🙂
Fabulous!
Thanks so much!
WOW! I LOVE what you have both done. These images are fantastic. I can’t stop looking at them. What an inspiring project!
Thanks so much, Lemony! Really glad you like them – it was great working with Barry – he has a fantastic line.
Nicely done!
Thanks very much!
This is brilliant! I love this idea and the fact that you are feeding off of and responding to one another. It’s very inspiring to me.
Thanks so much, Matt! Yes, it was great fun working with Barry – it was a real surprise seeing the images develop. Really glad you like it.
Great job
Just beautiful
As always Sheldon
Thanks very much, Sheldon – much appreciated.
Very much like these portraits – at all stages. Always interesting to see how people interpret themselves too – yours still has that courage to it that you bring to all your shots – somehow showing something both vulnerable and strong. Both the drawing and photograph have this I think, i can see how you were drawn to collaborate..
Yes, I think Barry and I recognised something in each other’s work. That’s such a nice compliment – thanks so much, Cath.
A fascinating project, indeed. Thanks, too, for introducing me to Barry Comer’s work.
Thanks so much, Michael. You’re welcome – Barry’s great isn’t he?
Certainly is! I love your ‘exchange’ with Scarlett too.
Fascinating. I find the creation of new media, interactive and trans-communication art enormously powerful with potential for social change. Whole new art forms & new media are waiting to be born. With them comes new forms of “reading/decoding” . This in turn means creating new neural pathways for processing information. What starts out as a highly inventive art project & blog post is a seed for creating the 21st century brain. 🙂
🙂 Wow! Thanks so much, Joseph. I like the implications the internet/ digital media has for authorship – neither of the eventual drawings are like anything Barry or I would make alone (I don’t think).
great to see a new idea – interesting 🙂
Thanks very much, Carla 🙂
[…] Project One: Barry Comer and Richard Guest by Richard Guest – Another interesting item by Richard, here describing a unique visual collaboration between himself and Barry Comer. Read the post for the details, but essentially they iteratively edited self portraits to produce a final product. I thought it was a very creative idea, and Richard shares some of the in-progress images as well. […]
[…] my break, (and as a result of working with Barry Comer (our project can be viewed here) and Dan Parnell (a post about our collaboration is coming soon) I began to wonder what it would be […]
Wonderful idea…and I really like the results.
Thanks very much, Janet – really glad you like it.
Briliant!!!
Thanks so much, Malin!
Brilliant!!!
Wow, so powerful!
Thanks so much, Jennifer – it was a lot of fun working with Barry – hopefully we’ll do it again.
I love what you do and what Barry does. Together, terrific.
Yes, I love what Barry does too – it was great fun working with him. Hopefully we’ll do some more stuff in future. This reminds me a bit of your collaboration with Karen.
what a cool collab, I am particularity enchanted by that last image.
Thanks very much, Karen. Really glad you like it. Hopefully another one soon…
ciao! clear sight…
thebestdressup
Thanks very much!
Very cool.
Thanks very much!