Photographer Matthew Rolston (and fellow Art Center alum) has a show at the Greenville County Art Museum. His large scale photo prints are of ventriloquist dolls from the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. The museum’s blurb reads, “The photographer argues on behalf of our collective humanity, and he offers the gaze of these portraits as an avenue of connection.” 

Nothing visually connects with us like a human face staring back. I made a few pencil sketches from the photos. Odd; looking at sketches of photos of caricature models of human faces looking at us.

And, as Mr. Rolston said, their humanity shines through. Maybe weirdly or uncomfortably so. One of the museum guards remarked that after hours, when there’s no one in the place, the unrelenting gaze of these portraits in the darkened museum leaves him a tad queasy.