Nicolai Froehlich
To Stimulate You
Color Photography
30" x 20" each, 30" x 180" total

To Stimulate You

This series of pictures shows a woman spitting at the camera...and the viewer. It is a linear narrative that is meant to read from left to right. The bright, warm colors and the smile, that starts and finishes the sequence of images, gives the viewer initially a sense of harmless frolic. Examining the pictures further, one begins to notice the woman is violating the viewer. Frances Hawthrone, an art professor at U.N.C. Charlotte, comments on her perception of the images: "This one I liked because no matter even when I knew it was spit, I thought it was bubble gum. She's smiling. I think this reminds me of bubble gum and blowing bubbles. The first time I translated it as a popped bubble gum."

The progression of the pictures with a larger-than-life woman gives the sense of viewing frames from a movie. I wanted to mix cinema and photography to show how a group of images can (blur the line between stopping action and making it) animate to tell a story.