Local Art Seen: Fascination With Faces

From my earliest days I remember being fascinated with faces. Infants, even before they can form words, respond to faces, especially their mothers and fathers. Science has shown that this face recognition is innate.

Even when we're silent, our faces say much.

Various faces by Eric Horn

The other night I was at Goin' Postal and noticed a new piece that I hadn't seen before. (The wooden carving above.) Then I looked around and saw the variety of ways in which faces are displayed and portrayed. As many already know, the blog where I've been sharing my own art is called The Many Faces of Ennyman. Faces have been a lifelong theme for me. Even as a pre-school toddler I liked to draw faces.

According to research, our ability to recognize faces comes from neuron activity in the temporal lobe of our brains. Some people who get a head injury and damage their temporal lobe can lose their ability to recognize and identify familiar faces. This is called prosopagnosia.

Here's a small sampling of the variety of ways faces can be interpreted in various mediums, interspersed with a few Bob Dylan lyrics about faces, a word that appears more than 100 times in his songs.

* * * *

"Where the executioner's face is always well hidden..."
--Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall 

* * * *

"Face Value" by Linda Glisson

"Why does he look so righteous while your face is so changed"
--Won't You Please Crawl Out Your Window

 * * * *

"While she couldn't even recognize his face!"
--John Brown 

* * * *

"Then he moved into the corner, face down like the Jack of Hearts."
--Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts

* * * *

"Punched myself in the face with my fist."
--Million Dollar Bash 

* * * *

"One look at his face showed the hard road he'd come."
--Only A Hobo 

* * * *

"She studied the lines on my face."
--Tangled Up In Blue 

* * * *

"Darkness on the face of the deep"
--Spirit on the Water

 * * * *

Dylan Discovers a New Way of Seeing

* * * * 

Related Links
My art blog, The Many Faces of Ennyman
My Flickr Gallery of Dylan Portraits
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