George Lewis Personal Statement

As an artist and believer in the power of empathy, I hope to convey certain ideals through my varied pieces of artwork. All men are descended from the same primordial being. Yet, many of us forget about this common bond. My art delves into the life of the stranger, and brings out the similarity in the dichotomy. In my travels to Bhutan, I sought to capture the “other” in his or her most intimate moments, showing, through my photographs, that we are all essentially the same. We all laugh, we all cry. We all uphold certain values and beliefs. Though we may dress ourselves in different clothes, we wear the same colors. Bhutan is a land shrouded in mysticism, both alluring and confusing to those of us brought up in the West. But, by traversing the bubble and entering the realm of “the other”, we see that “the other” is simply a construction of our imagination, that we are all the same. It is this truth that my work aims to capture.