now in my later age. I’m almost 76. I want to share what I love, and I don’t share it to make money. I have
been able to live off my work, but I don’t compromise. I make work sometimes that I don’t even send
out to shows, because they will never be sold. I make the work for myself, for my own sense of purpose,
and meaning and love.
AB: How does mortality inform your work?
JPW: I photograph death because it’s part of life. In fact, I haven’t photographed death in about 20 years. The
last time I photographed death was in the ‘90s. You change, you change your direction, and a lot of things
change for you. The motivations may change. You’ve covered a theme and you want to move on. That’s a
natural state. Though, as with any other theme, if something came up that was really wonderful that I thought
would be important to work with, I would. I’m a visual dramatist, and things that are pretty and beautiful like
nature, I appreciate, but I don’t involve my aesthetic life with them. I like horrible things. Things that change
us when we see them. I’m not a minimalist; I’m a dramatist. That’s a big factor in the subjects I choose. I make
with the purpose to share and to illuminate the possibility that what is being seen is something wonderful
and incredibly different. You walk away with a reverence of the subject matter.
Joel Peter-Witkin, Correspondence between Freud and Mailol, 2015.
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