Collection 1980s–Present

Leslie Hewitt. Riffs on Real Time. 2002-05

Chromogenic print, 30 × 24" (76.2 × 61 cm). Fund for the Twenty-First Century. © 2024 Leslie Hewitt

Artist, Leslie Hewitt: I guess what's unique about my way of photographing is that it always has to include another photograph. I'm thinking of the photograph as an object, as something that was printed and created and is tangible.

And then I include it in a process of either constructing a still life or creating some type of collage. And that starts to kind of create this dialogue between it is an object and it is an image, and then build from there.

I mean, I love snapshots. And I think, coming of age in a time where Kodak completely socialized all of us to really take the same personal pictures. We all have the same inclination to mark a moment through a photograph, and that's learned—we were all socialized, engaged in that way, and that's something that I really value.

We all have our own particular view. To see a photograph isn't only to see through the eyes of the photographer, but it's also to acknowledge that you as a viewer are seeing something as well, and you own that.