A changing installation and exhibition of photo portraits and paintings at Denver's new Museum of Contemporary Art, WE'LL BE SEEING YOU is done in collaboration with members of the Denver community. Based on the idea of metaphoric or environmental portraiture, each sitter arrives at the museum's Project Gallery itself for a photo shoot armed with answers to a questionnaire Balas sends out ahead of time.

Says the artist: "Normally when I photograph somebody, I ask a number of questions beforehand -- not only about interests, but also about words, phrases or ideas important to him/her, which can be written on signs that appear in the images. I also ask people to bring in some personal objects that may have special significance to them. Thus, the portraits can go beyond the normal focus on surface looks, and can delve into a metaphoric realm. For the last 12 years in photography, and for the last 3 years in painting, I have devoted much of my time and thought to portraiture and metaphor.

"For this project, rather than my usual bodybuilder-type models, I am creating a chain of models that starts at the museum and branches out into the community. I am starting with one person from each of MCA-Denver's six partner educational institutions and asking them to recommend the next person to come, hopefully people whom they would not expect to find visiting an art museum, let alone be depicted in one, and that person recommends the next, and so on. This progression of the least-usual suspects could get pretty far beyond the MCA over 10 generations or so. Each person comes to the museum for about an hour for the shoot, and would come back to see his/her image in the exhibition and be encouraged to write his / her thoughts on the print itself, about what they see and how they like being seen in this context."

The installation in the project gallery will grow during the first half of the exhibition's run as more portraits are added to the walls in a flow-chart / tree diagram. Some of Balas' time will also be spent working on watercolor paintings that depart from the photographic source material, giving sitters an insight not only into the creative process, but also showing in concrete fashion everyone's potential to represent ideas and metaphor as human beings -- i.e., that we all are the stuff of history (and art history).

Overall, Balas sees the museum as an anchor point for this chain of images and ideas tossed out into the community, one that draws everyone (and their families) back for the exhibition -- an exhibition that might be considered more accessible, due to its subject matter, to many who might not be that conversant in or are even intimidated by contemporary art.

We'll be seeing you.

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