PHOTOGRAPHER TOMMY KHA
Tommy tell us about you.
I was born, here I am.
I’m currently based in Brooklyn, New York, generally working between here and my hometown, Memphis, Tennessee.
your greatest inspirations or influences?
I love the color works of Wong Kar-Wai, Nan Goldin, and William Eggleston. The first ever art photograph I saw was a photograph at Brooks Museum, I believe Revenge of the Goldfish, a Sandy Skoglund—it’s when I realized I could be a photographer.
The humor of Amber Ruffin, Dorothy Parker, Flannery O’Connor, Tseng Kwong Chi, Ren Hang, and Pixy Liao. I’m drawn to anthology films. My closest friends are musicians and painters.
I want to have a tea with Brit Marling, a gin and tonic with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, I think a Seltzer with Miranda July and Sophie Calle, and I make their pictures. I’m not as much of a literary person but I like to think I take after my great aunt, who, I’m told, ‘read too many books and went crazy.” Followed by “She’s also adopted.’”
How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing moving forward?
My creative process lately has involved the ideas of outsourcing and time traveling through my personal archives, both artifacts of the pandemic. I’ve been physically deconstructing my pictures by cutting them up for parts, and reconfiguring them in a studio space to be rephotographed and recycled. I’m intrigued, through, by outsourcing, an extended collaboration between the camera and a cast of sitters.
A recent studio visit, we drew the conclusion of photographs as currency, as exchange, via the souvenir/gift shop. So I’ve been transforming my work into puzzles, 35mm slides, lenticular, and takeaways.
We always want to remember something we’ve left behind.
Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?
Our mirrors, ourselves. Not that I agree with what I see. I am a piece of work though.
Do you think the art world needs to change, and if so how can it be improved?
No matter how much we reconfigure ourselves in our spaces, there’s always room for improvement. The art world isn’t different. I look forward to when the world is reflective of itself. In short, more women, more BIPOC, more Indigenous People, more queers, more trans stories.
www.tommykha.com
Instagram: @tommykha
Studio shots Andrew Kim / International Studio and Curatorial Program (https://iscp-nyc.org).
