Andrew Novick's Unstill Life captures people in spontaneous moments

Whether he's stuffing his subjects' faces with food or taking pictures of them covered in their own blood, Andrew Novick takes photographs that document an always interesting and often delightfully weird time. This time around, the artist, collector, Peeps expert, Stanley Film Festival collaborator and Warlock Pincher looked to his...

By Robin Edwards

April 3, 2014

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Whether he's stuffing his subjects' faces with food or taking pictures of them covered in their own blood, Andrew Novick takes photographs that document an always interesting and often delightfully weird time. This time around, the artist, collector, Peeps expert, Stanley Film Festival collaborator and Warlock Pincher looked to his vast archives of photos to put together a show of lively portraits titled Unstill Life, which opens with a reception (complete with sushi, drinks and music from DJ Gatsby) at 8 p.m. Friday, April 4 at Crimson Hilt Tattoo. "I didn't want to call it portraits, because that sounds either kind of professional or like you're at a mall," says Novick. "To me, a portrait is almost like a still life because someone's posing. Even though it's a live person it's a still life, whereas these picture are more off-the-cuff. Something was happening and I was just capturing it."

When he was invited by Morgan Febrey of 1/1 Magazine to put together a show, Novick didn't have time to stage an elaborate photo shoot, which led him to delve into photographs he'd already taken. "I started just looking at my trove of pictures throughout the many years and I realized one of the things I really do a lot of is just pictures of people," explains Novick. "This is a very snapshot-y type of show. But on the other hand, it's capturing people at some creative moment or another."

The 22 prints in the show feature creatives during all sorts of one-of-a-kind moments, from a glowing long exposure shot of Alamo Drafthouse creative manager Keith Garcia DJ-ing to a photograph of a girl dressed like a ghostly bride peering through a sheer curtain. "Most of the pictures are me capturing something that I thought looked cool and then ending up realizing the photos had a lot of personality," says Novick.

"I think it's just a really cool, varied way at looking at a lot of different people," he continues. "I can give a show a theme or whatever, but it really is just things I like taking pictures of. The food and the blood ones were me working with the subject in the picture to come up with something cool to do and to try, while these ones were just spur of the moment, something I saw and wanted to capture." Keep reading for more photos from Unstill Life.

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