“Men who are attracted to domestic life first feel the need to close themselves away, then comes the desire to hide the nudity of the walls that separate them from the world”. Charles Blanc from Grammaire des Arts du Dessin
Traditionally, the domestic realm is linked to notions of femininity, yet as Charles Blanc stresses it can also be a space that describes the masculine psyche. The home becomes a private place where men can withdraw from the world to think, meditate and act out their fantasies. In the Bachelor Portraits pictures, the living space becomes a wider metaphor for the internal life of a man. It is a place of refuge and a prison; where a the men get back in touch with themselves by eliminating human contact and depriving themselves of an emotional connection with the outside world.
I meet the men via word of mouth or on the street and see their home for the first time when I arrive to photograph them. Each of the men reminds me of my own vulnerability or a part of myself. Some are extremely shy; others have dedicated their lives to caring for a family member, while another group was so completely immersed in creative or intellectual pursuits they had little time for a relationship. Many of the men spent a great deal of effort to arrange their living space, developing a kind of personal iconography completely independent from the consumer notion of what a home should be. The décor of the spaces is so profoundly personal, that at times it feels like you are standing in someone else’s skin, a space too uncomfortable for anyone other than the bachelor to occupy. The images became a form of collaborative dialog about the men and these spaces. They are a story about mutual gain, loss and the traumatic personal events, which leave indelible marks of sadness on human lives. The photographs never overtly describe these traumas; they exist only as subtle visual hints in a larger personal narrative the men and I create together for the camera." Justyna Badach May 2008
