. The show is in some ways a retrospective, not just of Man’s sketches and paintings from 2014 to the present, but of the artist’s and author’s lineage, an homage to the inherited, structured forms that dictated his past, which Man, in turn, has redefined through his free, wandering lines that move without seeking any binary system, any beginning or end. “I’m collaborating with my younger self,” the artist says. “I’m able to provide the words that I didn’t have at that age.
MAN: You know what? It’s really tough, because I’ve got a stack of thousands of sketches that I’ve had through my time, and I had to go through them every day. I had to go through them and just feel everything that I had felt back at that time. Honestly, I’ve had some photos before from the past, but for whatever reason, the sketches hit differently. I feel like I can more easily connect with my mind at that time when I see those sketches.
KIM: No, I was so engaged with your answer. What did I ask? I think I was just wanting to know more about your experience of looking at yourself through time. MAN: When you look back on your old work, do you remember the feelings that you had when you were creating that work? KIM: Yeah. It’s almost like you were saying, it’s a line passed down through the lines, and maybe through the generations. Another topic I wanted to talk about with you is safety.KIM: Well, there’s two ways to go about it. I feel like you need to over-explain something sometimes to gain some kind of sense of security and safe space, but I also know that people like us don’t really owe anyone any explanation. Yet we do have to explain ourselves in order to get safety.