Valerie Huhn

Fingerprints were once used as a symbolic action of pride, but in our society they have become a passive action—we are fingerprinted.  We can use our fingerprints to unlock the data troves of our own phones, but others—often police—can also force us to open those electronic extensions of self. I am interested in bringing humanity back to the fingerprint—whether in obsessive repetitious patterns or the intimate setting of a personal bureau that houses our second skin.  

 

The fingerprint work in this series is created with my right index finger.  Each print is catalogued with the date it was created beneath it.  The work revolves around identity—identifying and categorizing people into groups and subgroups within society. It is the notion of a fixed self or our identification of others that I am challenging, using color, shape, and pressure of every print—along with its accompanying date.